The Negro Newspaper Volume I

125259

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

The ISTEC^TLO

I o ttxc: Series

by

Y'ellow Spjrljcig-s, Ofctio
194.8

Table of Contents

PAGE

1. FOREWORD 3

2. INTRODUCTION 20

3. A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

(FAVORABLE) 30

One Hundred Per Cent American 32

The Champion of the Negro Cause 35

Widening Horizon 38

4. A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

(UNFAVORABLE) 43

Sensationalism 43

So-Called "Enlightened" Self-interest 47

Quislingism, the Negro's Greatest Enemy 52

Freedom of the Press 63

5. How THE NEWSPAPER FUNCTIONS 65

Number and Circulation 66

Subscription Rates 71

Publishing Establishments 72

Wage and Labor Policies 75

6. NEWS COVERAGE AND GENERAL MAKE-UP 83

7. NEWS GATHERING AGENCIES 99

8. ADVERTISING IN THE NEGRO PRESS 112

9. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER .... 122

Ante-Bellum Newspapers 122

From the Civil War to the Close of the First World War 124

From the Close of the First World War to Date ... 126

Negro Magazines Today 129

10. SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT 133

APPENDIX I. BIBLIOGRAPHY 138

APPENDIX IL DIRECTORY OF NEGRO NEWSPAPERS .... 151

APPENDIX III. DIRECTORY OF COLLEGE CAMPUS PUBLICATIONS 166

INDEX TO SUBJECTS 169

Foreword

I

FELT THE NEED f CMT a COIH-

prehcnsive book or a series of small volumes on Negro
business 1 when I first completed my master's thesis on
"Commercial Education in Negro Colleges" at the Uni-
versity of Iowa in 1932. Five years later, I finished my
doctor's thesis at Clark University (Massachusetts), using
the same subject but enlarging its scope. This necessitated
my visiting all the Negro colleges which were then offer-
ing business curricula. I was dismayed to find that many
students as well as teachers knew very little about the
historical background of Negro business, its difficulties,
its needs, and its potentialities. This was due, in part, to
the fact that there was not any worthwhile literature on
Negro business other than a few articles scattered in
various magazines, a few reports published some forty
years earlier, a mimeographed book on the Development

1 The phrase "Negro business" is used here and thmout this
book to mean business enterprises owned and operated by Negroes.

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

of Negro Life Insurance Enterprise by William J. Trent
published in 1933, and two excellent tho old books on the
Negro Press: The Afro-American Press by I. Garland
Penn published in 1891 and The Negro Press in the Uni-
ted States by Frederick G. Detweiler published in 1922.
Since then there have appeared two more books: An
Economic Detour: A history of insurance in the lives of
American Negroes, a book of very valuable tho poorly
digested information written in 1940 by M. S. Stuart, a
man in the insurance business; and the Negro Business
and Business Education, the product of a comprehensive
and valuable study sponsored by the General Education
Board, written by Joseph A. Pierce, and published in 1947.
The three volumes, which I am planning to publish under
the general title of The Negro Entrepreneur, approach
the subject of Negro business from a different angle;
hence they do not duplicate Dr. Pierce's recent study,
but definitely supplement it. These volumes have the
added value of being highly critical as well as construc-
tive in their evaluation of the present status of Negro
business, especially since their author did not have to
"sing to any one's tune."

Constant questioning by students about Negro busi-
ness made me realize how urgent the need for such a
book is. Thus it was that I first conceived the idea of
writing it. With this in mind I tried for three years to
secure a fellowship from the Rosenwald Fund and the

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AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

General Education Board, but my efforts were unsuc-
cessful. Later on when I learned that the General Educa-
tion Board was financing a large scale study of Negro
business under the auspices of Atlanta University and
the National Urban League, I volunteered my services
for conducting that part of the research which dealt with
business education in Negro colleges and universities,
but I was unable to get any sympathetic response.

It appears that most philanthropic organizations, and
especially those which administer aid to minority groups,
are closely tied with a few "proper" persons from each
minority group, and unless these persons give the right
signal, the applicant for aid is "out of luck." While I was
trying all the available sources which would have per-
mitted me to devote full time to this project, I was work-
ing diligently on it in my spare time and during summer
vacations. The entire book, when completed, did not turn
out to be as exhaustive as I would have liked even tho I
had spent a considerable amount of time and money on
study and travel to finish it. The difficulty of getting
replies to letters sent to our business men, many of whom
have failed to develop a sense of responsibility toward
good public relations, made my task doubly hard. "The-
public-be-damned" attitude, so common in our business
men as evidenced by their wholesale failure to answer
letters that do not bring in direct and immediate mone-
tary returns, may be partly due to their short-sightedness

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

and partly to their being comparatively free from keen
competition in the business fields in which they are gen-
erally engaged.

Much of the material of the entire study has been
ready for some time, but I was hesitant to release it. One
general reaction of many of my friends who read the en-
tire manuscript was that the book was too critical of
Negro business. Yet, try as I would, I could find no way
of being honest with myself and at the same time ser-
viceable to the future of Negro business except by being
critical; for in this way alone can real service be rendered.
Sugar-coated criticism quite often misses its mark as the
listener may fail to see beyond the sugar-coating and
may develop an attitude of smugness which often leads
him to ultimate ruination. An attitude of receptivity to
constructive criticism, on the other hand, is something
that all persons should be eager to cultivate if they
really mean to make progress.

It is, indeed, disheartening and often sickening to see
educators dissipating their creative ability in wrangling
over the Du Bois vs Washington controversy instead of
accepting the simple truth that both men were inspired
with the highest of ideals and motives, that they were
primarily interested not in themselves but in the uplift
of the Negro as a whole, and that each expressed himself
as he saw the problem and its solution. Being raised
under different circumstances and with different back-

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AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

grounds, their views were bound to be different, and to
accuse either of them with race disloyalty is utter folly.

If one were to take Dale Carnegie seriously and follow
the philosophy expressed in his popular book, How to
Win Friends and Influence People, there would be no
progress made in human society. There would be no men
like W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Phillip Ran-
dolph, Clayton Powell, and many others who certainly
have never gone about with the sole idea of winning
friends. "Mutual Admiration" societies a la Dale Carnegie
may have their merits, but quite often they end in cre-
ating inflated heads the worst curse of human progress,
individual or group. When a patient needs an immediate
surgical operation, no doctor can cure him by soft and
pleasing words or by postponing the crucial day in order
to keep the patient in good humor and win his friend-
ship. Neither can die-hards and unimaginative and con-
servative people be aroused to action except by strong
and stinging blows.

It is with these things in mind and with the full
realization of my sense of responsibility that this series
is being written in the hope that it might help in stimu-
lating some of our business leaders to action by bringing
them to accept the challenge offered in its pages. I am
also hoping that the appearance of this book, changed
into a series of small volumes for reasons explained later,
might stimulate some agency to commission someone

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

to devote his entire time to study and travel for two to
three years in order to gather the information necessary
for writing a more exhaustive treatise.

\l The segregation of American Negroes, who comprise
approximately one-tenth of the total population, has led
to the development of a new philosophy. This philosophy,
which has now many strong adherents, holds to the doc-
trine that the creation of a civilization within a civiliza-
tion and the building of a segregated economy within
the framework of a national economy are partial and
temporary yet effective solutions to the Negro's socio-
economic problems. It was this doctrine that led Booker
T. Washington to organize the National Negro Business
League in 1900; it had and still has thousands of adher-
ents who are faithful to this day, I classify myself as one
of them.

The depression of the thirties struck the Negro worker
and the Negro business man most heavily. As a partial
solution to their economic plight, several successful boy-
cotts were launched in Chicago in the early thirties.
Leaders of this movement were supported by Negro
newspapers and business men, both of whom expected
direct benefits from the success of such campaigns. These
boycotts were directed only toward white business enter-
prises in Negro neighborhoods which did not employ
Negro clerks, salesmen, or managers in their establish-

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AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

ments. The slogan of this movement was: "Don't Spend
Your Money Where You Can't Work." This meant that
.if Negroes were not being employed in business enter-
prises because of their race, then, out of self-respect as
well as for self-protection, they should refrain from patro-
nizing such enterprises and should buy their wares from
Negro stores, or from white stores which do not discrimi-
nate against Negroes in their employment practices.

This movement brought many successful results and
soon other cities, particularly those located in the North,
followed Chicago's lead. While quite dormant during
the recent war, when everyone who wanted work found
work, it seems that the movement is likely to start again
in full swing. The Vanguard League in Columbus, Ohio,
under the leadership of Frank C Shearer, a brilliant law-
yer and an indefatigable worker; the Future Outlook
League in Cleveland, under the dynamic leadership of
John O. Holly; the Housewives' League in Detroit, under
the leadership of Mrs. Fannie B. Peck; and many other
similar organizations scattered thruout the United States
have opened several new employment opportunities for
Negroes during the Second World War, often without
resorting to the boycott and picketing methods. Labor
shortages existing during the recent war made their task
easy. Other cities, particularly those in the North where
the Negro has enough political freedom to assure for
himself a reasonably fair deal in the courts, should do

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

everything possible to gain further entries into white
collar jobs. Organized effort should also be made for
preserving the gains already made in such jobs.

If the policy "Don't Spend Your Money Where You
Can't Work" is carried out to its logical conclusion, it
not only strengthens the argument for a completely seg-
regated economy (if such an economy is possible under
our present complex industrial organization), but may
lead to a counter movement by whites to shut out Negroes
from work in those industries which do not enjoy a
large Negro patronage. Such seems to be the contention of
Dr. Abram L. Harris, formerly a professor of econom-
ics at Howard University and now employed by the
University of Chicago, the most liberal of all liberal uni-
versities. In discussing the plight of the Negro middle
class in his book The Negro as Capitalist, he expresses
his conviction that the Negro leaders and business men
behind this movement are motivated by the selfish desire
to monopolize and to exploit the Negro market for them-
selves by replacing the white merchants. "The Negro
masses who seem to follow them blindly do not see,"
asserts Dr. Harris, "that they have no greater exploiter
than the black capitalist who lives upon low-waged if
not sweated labor, although he and his family may, and
often do, live in conspicuous luxury." 2

2 Abram L. Harris, The Negro as Capitalist, Philadelphia:
American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1936, p. 184.

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AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

When one seriously but vainly looks around for phil-
anthropic donations from Negro capitalists to aid in up-
lifting the masses on whose support they are thriving,
one is forced to admit the truthful implications of Dr.
Harris' statement. One can say, however, with equal
truthfulness, that the fathers of the American Revolu-
tion were also guided by identical motives of self-advance-
ment: they desired to capture the market then controlled
by the English with a view to exploiting it for their own
benefit. Our present competitive system of economy is
so organized that the success of one individual is often
achieved by the downfall of another. While, therefore,
I agree with Dr. Harris in the contention that a black
capitalist is no better than a white one, I believe that, in
the absense of a better program, we should welcome
further increase in the number of "black capitalists."
Exploitation at best is bad, but, from a long range point-
of-view, the exploitation of a people by some of its own
people is less devastating than exploitation by outsiders.
For that reason, the slogan "Don't Spend Your Money
Where You Can't Work" should be constandy hammered
into the consciousness of the buying public in spite of the
possible, tho not probable, danger of the whites shutting
out Negroes from work on similar grounds. Until a more
practical program is presented, Negroes should continue
their efforts by peaceful means to gain further entries
into white business enterprises dependent upon Negro

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

patronage. This movement should be carried down to
Southern cities where conditions warrant such action.

I believe quite strongly that before the Negro can suc-
cessfully fight for his complete integration in the present
American social and economic order, he must build a
strong "Negro economy" within the fabric of "white
economy." With this in mind, I have pointed out in this
series that the Negro has not even scratched the surface
of many opportunities open to him even in the limited
fields of business ventures and that he can easily expand
his present business enterprises in retail trade, service es-
tablishments, insurance, newspapers, and service agencies
dominated by whites to several times their present size
by improving upon his present methods of doing business.

I have also pointed out in this series that blaming the
educated classes for not supporting racial enterprises as
blindly as the masses seem to do will only aggravate the
problem and that what the Negro business man needs
to do is to set his house in order and offer his services
and goods only on the basis of "as good as any other at
the same cost." After all, the primary purpose of every
business man is to make a profit for himself. Any attempt
to mislead the public on this issue will end in disaster.
The Negro public is gradually becoming fool-proof
against any and all ballyhoo tactics. At the same time, it
is becoming more race conscious and hence more eager
and willing to support Negro business. Low as the Ne-

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AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

gro's economic status is, it should not be further lowered
by a system of higher prices just to support racial enter-
prises. I have seen many white business enterprises lo-
cated in Negro neighborhoods fail entirely whenever
they received strong competition from Negro enterprises
whose appeal rested solely on the quality of service rather
than on race loyalty. Excellent examples of this will be
given in the chapter on "Case histories of some success-
ful business ventures" in the third volume, titled The
Negro's Adventure in General Business.

It is high time that our business men realize that the
days of ruthless competition and sharp business practices
are passing away rapidly. As a result of the recent econo-
mic and political death struggle in which the whole
world was engaged, a new social and economic order is
emerging, slowly yet steadily, both here and abroad. The
question, therefore, arises: Have Negro business men
enough sound judgment and strength of character to re-
shape voluntarily their old worn-out laissez jaire philoso-
phy or will they have to be compelled to do this by the
onslaught of changing social forces? Negro business has
reached a milestone and it ought to be justly proud of
this achievement, but, at the same time, it must also re-
alize that the enviable and praiseworthy success of a
handful of business men will in no way solve the problem
of the ninety per cent of Negroes who are still living in

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

ignorance and dire poverty. Our business men, therefore,
must develop a social consciousness without which their
success will not mean much to the masses.

The lack of social vision and philanthropic spirit in
the Negro capitalist of today makes a very sad story in-
deed! Atlanta University is the only Negro institution
which has an endowed chair for the training of Negro
youth in business, but the endowment comes from white
philanthropy. The means for the only large scale survey
of the present status of Negro business, just completed
by Atlanta University and the National Urban League,
also came from white philanthropy. Negro business has
reached such a height that it could have undertaken this
study without any financial aid from any outside source.
After all, there are many successful business men who
have amassed considerable fortunes thru the patronage
of their own race.

It might be noted here in passing that success of Negro
business should not be measured merely by the number
of Negro capitalists in proportion to white ones, but
rather by the number of sympathetic Negro capitalists
who are directly concerned in the Negro's welfare as
against unsympathetic white ones who have nothing di-
rectly at stake and who often open business enterprises
in Negro neighborhoods only as stepping stones for their
later business ventures exclusively in the white world.

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AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

To avoid delay and annoyance that would have been
inevitable had I taken the necessary time to "shop around"
for a publisher for this book, I decided to undertake this
job myself and go thru the thrill, the anxiety, and the
worry incident to the publication and marketing of the
book. I soon realized, however, that the printing costs
had risen over 100 per cent in the case of low cost estab-
lishments which hitherto had asked only a nominal
price. The increased printing cost meant the sinking in
of a larger sum of money than I could very well afford,
especially when one considers the relatively limited mar-
ket for this type of product. If I had decided to print
several thousand copies, the unit cost would have fallen
down considerably, but, on the basis of available statistics,
I concluded that only a small number of copies will satis-
fy the market, thus making the unit cost very high. It
was the prohibitive cost of printing and binding plus my
unwillingness to delay the publication any longer that
led me to the decision of dividing the book as originally
conceived into a series of three volumes and of publishing
one volume at a time.

Such a plan for publishing the book has another
advantage. Material on such important ventures as news-
papers, insurance, banking, and others is likely to be
lost in a large book on the general subject of business.
Division, on the other hand, into three small and easily
readable volumes will afford proper emphasis to each of

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

these types of ventures. All these considerations led me
to divide the larger book, The Negro Entrepreneur, into
the following three volumes:

The Negro Newspaper

Negro Insurance and Banking

The Negro's Adventure in General Business

The names of the first two volumes are self-explana-
tory and require no further elaboration. In the third vol-
ume, The Negro's Adventure in General Business, I dis-
cuss the subject of popular business ventures. The follow-
ing topics will indicate the scope: A brief history of the
development of Negro business, economic development
of the Negro, business opportunities open to Negroes,
the National Negro Business League, case histories of
some successful business ventures, and a functional pro-
gram of business education. Dr. Frederick D. Patterson,
president of Tuskegee Institute and past president of the
National Negro Business League for several years, has
written the introduction to the third volume.

The question of business education in Negro col-
leges, the type of curricula offered, the demand for such
education, the need for changes in their present program,
and other matters dealing with business education have
been touched but lightly in the third volume under the
chapter tided "A functional program of business educa-
tion." Education for business training is, in reality, a sep-

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AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

arate and distinct phase of Negro business a phase which
has unfortunately been neglected too long by educators
and by business men. Since adequate training programs
in business will undoubtedly help in the healthy devel-
opment of Negro business, it is my intention to discuss,
in full detail, the entire question of business education
in Negro colleges, either as a fourth volume of this series
or as a separate book.

The Negro Newspaper is selected to appear as the
first of the series because of my conviction that a critical
evaluation of the Negro Press is overdue and that with-
holding this material any longer would make it stale. I
have shown in this volume that newspapers have already
lost a major part of their leadership in molding public
opinion and that, unless they begin rapidly to develop a
genuine social consciousness, they will lose their leader-
ship entirely and become like gramophones without souls.
In reading this volume one might suddenly realize that
the newspapers of today do not necessarily reflect public
opinion and that what is normally passed on by them as
such is often the reflection of the thinking of their editors
or publishers. Keeping in mind that the newspapers
"make no bones" about criticizing everything that in any
way conflicts with their own pet ideas, I have been very
critical in evaluating them in the hope that they will
take such criticism as gracefully as they "dish it out." I
have also made some suggestions for their improvement.

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

So many persons have helped me in various ways in
putting this series of three volumes together that it is
impossible to name all of them here. A few persons,
however, deserve special mention. I owe a deep debt of
gratitude to Dr. Frederick D. Patterson, president of Tus-
kegee Institute, for his active encouragement in having
me as guest of the institution while I used the files of its
Records and Research Department and for his direct con-
tribution to this series in writing the introduction to the
third volume; to Mr. Charles H. Loeb, news editor of the
Cleveland Call and Post and president of the Editorial
Society of the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association,
for his introduction to this volume; to Professor E.
Champ Warrick of Wilberforce University for the excel-
lent and meticulous editing and proofreading which Kave
made the book more readable; to Miss Mollie E. Dunlap,
Librarian of Wilberforce University, for help in securing
reference material thru inter-library loans and for assis-
tence in proofreading the manuscript; to Dr. Charles
Leander Hill, president of Wilberforce University, for
his concrete encouragement in every possible way; to
the Youngs, father and sons, of the Journal and Guide, to
Professor Armistead S. Pride of the School of Journalism
at Lincoln University, Missouri, and to Mr. Joseph B. La
Cour, manager of the Associated Publishers, Inc., for their
critical, valuable, and helpful comments on certain sec-
tions of this volume dealing with their special fields of

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AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

interest; to the staffs of Fisk and Howard libraries for
their courtesies; and to my wife Evangeline who urged
me to finish the series with constant assurance that even
if no one else prized them she would, nevertheless, regard
them highly as crowning several years' hard labor and
arising out of a sincere desire to tell the truth as I saw it
in the hope that it would help Negro business in the long
run. I must add that I assume full responsibility for the
interpretations of facts and for the points-of-view ex-
pressed. Those who have advised and helped me should
not be saddled with any blame or censure whatsoever.
Finally, I am indebted to the management of the Antioch
Press for their sympathetic guidance born out of wide
experience in dealing with manuscripts.

Introduction

By CHARLES H. LOEB*

JFDEREVER YOU FIND the Ne-

gro newspaper, whether its editorial policy is militant or
accommodating, blatantly radical or complacently con-
servative, you will find a medium of special advocacy of
human rights.

With a few exceptions, and not all of them in the
deep South, you will find the Negro Press a fighting
p.res$. Seldom is the perusal of its pages a pleasant ven-
ture into a new literature for its growing number of
white readers, for the pages of America's Negro news-
papers almost incessantly cry out in big bold type against
the injustices of the second-class citizenship accorded
its readers.

It is not strange that a considerable number of white
readers of Negro newspapers are prone to believe that
Negro editorial writers turn out their copy on some

*President. Editorial Society, Negro Newspaper Publishers Association.
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INTRODUCTION

special type of wailing wall, for a major proportion of
editorials in the Negro Press are fervent cries for or
against something. Negro editors cry out for justice, cry
out for equal opportunity, complain bitterly against the
status quo which relegates its readers to disfranchisement
and economic slavery in the Southland and to slum ghet-
tos and job discriminations in the Northern sections of
the nation. There are cries against the Bilboes, Rankins,
and Talmadges in the South, and cries for modern white
emancipators to arise in the North.

And there is only here and there the faintest expres-
sion of hope that this journalistic wailing at the wall
will soon abate. Those who expect the honesdy-motivated
Negro journalist to depart soon from this incessant wail-
ing are in for a great deal of disappointment, for the very
origin of the Negrq^aewspaper is steeped in the fight
against injustice. The first Negro newspaper, Freedom's
Journal, was launched in 1827 by John B. Russwurm and
Samuel E. Cornish as an abolitionist organ in the struggle
to eradicate slavery. Frederick Douglass' North Star was
brought into being during the Civil War and was one
of the most potent factors leading up to the emancipation
proclamation.

/Strangely enough, there exists no planning, no collu-
sion, no overall strategy between Negro newsmen in
this unanimity of protest, for the policies of the Negro
Press have never been regulated by a central voice of

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

authority. Indeed, it is only within very recent years
that the intense rivalry among Negro publishers for the
limited number of available readers has permitted the
organization of the Negro Newspaper Publishers Associa-
tion in which less than 75 of the nation's more than 200
periodicals maintain membership. Even this Association,
while bringing Negro publishers and journalists together
for consideration of such common problems as the stan-
dardization of rates, elimination of offensive advertising,
and higher journalistic standards, and for comparison of
business techniques, makes little or no attempt to govern
the editorial or news policies of its member papers.

The growth of the Negro Press, at least in circulation,
has been in almost direct proportion to the growth in
literacy among American Negroes, and the trend is
toward continuing growth. In 1870, there were 10 Negro
journals in North America; in 1880, there were 21; in
1890 there were 154. In 1880, there were Negro publica-
tions in 19 states; in 1890, in 28 states. Most of them had
small, almost negligible, circulation. Many of them were
fly-by-night propositions that soon failed, but some of
them like the Washington Bee, the Cleveland Gazette,
the Philadelphia Tribune, and the New Yorf^ Age were
destined to have many years of national influence. The
majority of these early newspapers were "One-Man" pro-
positions, printed for the most part in plants owned and

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INTRODUCTION

operated by whites, and usually terminating with the
demise of their publishers.

Today, the nation's most influential Negro newspa-
pers are housed in modern plants where hundreds of well-
trained craftsmen are employed. Whenever the coals of
adverse criticism are heaped upon the heads of Negro
publishers and working newsmen, they may well take
pride in the consideration of the almost unsurmountable
obstacles that were overcome in the process of develop-
ing these plants.

Few other business enterprises operated by any people
anywhere have had to seek maturity against such handi-
caps as have confronted the Negro publisher. To begin
with, there were the formidable barriers against the Ne-
gro's attempt to obtain higher education the higher edu-
cation that is the requisite to the faultless, fluent, objective
writing so ardently desired by those who castigate the
Negro Press for its inaccuracy, sensationalism, and poor
format.

Confronting every Negro who embarks upon a pub-
lisher's career are the dead bodies of previous failures.
However, once embarked upon this risky career the
would-be publisher faces the still insurmountable barrier
of frozen bank credits. What sensible white banker can
be expected to give financial aid and succor to a propa-
ganda vehicle dedicated to resist worker-exploitation, and
which incessantly wails against the status quo! "Why

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

warm this viper at our financial bosom?" was the think-
ing of the white banker of yesterday and of today.

It is for this reason that there is a story strikingly
repetitious in the history of every successful Negro news-
paper. A lone pioneer who writes his own stories and edi-
torials, has them printed in a white shop, distributes his
own circulation, solicits his own ads, until bit by bit the
necessary machinery is assembled; one by one the mechan-
ical force is employed. This is the familiar story of the
Robert S. Abbotts, the Murphy Brothers, the Youngs of
Virginia, the William O. Walkers, and others whose
names are outstanding in Negro journalism today.

Then comes the tortuous business of training type-
setters, compositors, layout men, stereotypers, and press-
men for the slowly developing plants. Only two schools
in the nation, Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes, have
offered Negro Americans the mere semblance of typo-
graphical training. Schools in which Negroes may learn
to operate high speed rotary presses are virtually non-
existent The craft unions that dominate the printing
industry are still closed to Negro youth for apprentice
training. Negro photo-engravers, of whom there are
fewer than fifty in the United States, are either self-taught
or the products of other Negroes employed in Negro
newspaper plants.

No one knows better than the publisher of a small
Negro newspaper how much tolerance of a sympathetic

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INTRODUCTION

readership, a readership hungry for news of its progress
and grateful for a champion, has figured in the continu-
ing growth of the Negro Press. Without this tolerance,
few of today's Negro newspapers would have been able
to survive the thousands of poorly-printed editions, the
atrocious cuts and engravings, the complete lack of for-
mat and balance, and the galleys of stale news that have
characterized so many Negro newspapers.

This tolerance is the most eloquent tribute that can be
paid to the type of unselfish community service the great,
great majority of Negro publishers have sought to render.
The charlatans and fakes, the self-seekers and false lead-
ers, the political opportunists and race traitors rarely sur-
vive for more than a year or two.

Negro publishers are engaged in a ceaseless struggle
for anything resembling a fair .share of advertising reve-
nue. It is only within recent years that the Negro Press
has received even token accounts from big national ad-
vertisers. However, there are many of the "middle class"
newspapers (circulation between 40,0000 and 60,000)
which have learned to develop their local markets. These
papers are running close to fifty per cent advertising in
their columns, securing the major portion of their busi-
ness from Negro-owned establishments in the commu-
nity, from white-owned establishments in the Negro com-
munity, and thru local tie-ins with national advertisers.
Wherever the smaller "local" newspapers have overcome

-25-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

this advertising dilemma they have ousted the objection-
able "lucky charm," dream book, and occult advertising
from their columns. Since the formation of the Negro
Newspaper Publishers Association there has been a sig-
nificant reduction of this type of copy in newspapers op-
erated by its members.

There can be no question today of the enormous im-
portance of the Negro Press in forming Negro opinion,
in the improvement of educational opportunities for Ne-
groes, in the field of interracial relationships, and in the
elevation of the level of the Negro people towards incon-
testable equality with their fellow citizens of other races.

For many years the Negro minister was the only
leader of the race. He was both spiritual and practical
leader. The advent and growth of the Negro Press has
seriously challenged this exclusive leadership, and unfor-
tunately, has created much unnecessary and, at times,
ridiculous strife between these two important molders of
Negro thought and progress. The astute Negro newsman
is the last to underestimate the continuing influence and
power of the Negro pulpiteer, and he is generally eager
to seek his cooperation. Only the most self-centered and
ill-advised of today's Negro ministers fails to avail him-
self of the cooperation freely offered him by the nation's
Negro newsmen.

-26-

INTRODUCTION

There are glorious years ahead for the Negro Press
which Dr. Oak, the author of this book, so aptly points
out, "has now definitely passed its initial period of ex-
periment, of evangelism, and of missionary zeal."

So long as the metropolitan newspapers of our nation
continue to play down Negro achievement while playing
up Negro crime; so long as they persist in ignoring the
cultural and social life of the Negro people; so long as
they continue their stubborn policy of giving only pass-
ing thought to the Negro citizen as an American entity of
considerable importance; so long as they are overly cau-
tious in joining the crusade for full equality for all Amer-
icans regardless of racial origin or of color, the Negro
Press will remain indispensable to Negro progress.

As the educational level of the Negro people rises, a
larger and more exacting audience will be afforded the
Negro Press. As Dr. Oak points out in his illuminating
treatment of the subject, the Negro Press must become
aware of the need to meet this rapidly-developing audi-
ence of critics. In future years, the Negro Press will find
itself called upon to produce a better printed, better writ-
ten, and more objective newspaper. I am confident that
it will meet this challenge.

In the not too distant future, with the necessary im-
provement and expansion of the already established news
agencies and the ability of Negro publishers to procure
modern news facilities, there will come into being power-

-27-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

ful daily newspapers operated by Negroes not weekly
newspapers printed daily, but real dailies providing world
news highlights regardless of color or implications, and
retaining the same devotion to racial unity and progress
that is the outstanding characteristic of today's Negro
weeklies.

Even with the coming of the day and it will come
when a citizen of the world will be recognized for his
ability and merit regardless of his race or color or re-
ligion, the Negro Press will continue to flourish. While
one would be indeed blind if he failed to see the constant
movement in America away from intolerance and racial
discrimination, the Negro publisher hardly has reason
to visualize impending doom.

Gunnar Myrdal, in his American Dilemma, after an
exhaustive study of Negro problems and institutions in
the United States, concludes that the Negro Press is "the
greatest single power in the Negro race."

Certainly no Negro journalist of today would be dar-
ing enough to make such a statement, but when it is
considered how few Negro publishers have ever become
millionaires, and how, until in recent years, hundreds
of conscientious Negro men and women operated these
newspapers with high altruism and low pay, it is not
unseemly to regard the Negro Press as one of the most
self-sacrificing agencies engaged in the fight for Negro
progress.

-28-

INTRODUCTION

The true Negro newsman, and I am happy in my
association with his breed, is possessed with high courage
and higher zeal. In the fight to improve the conditions
of his people, he has learned that praise and plaudits
are seldom given the "wailer, the crusader, or the re-
former," and that criticism for his obvious shortcomings
will always be abundant; but secure in the comfortable
knowledge that he is fighting the good fight for the good
cause, he is content. He reaps a daily reward in the con-
sideration of the unmistakable signs of progress about
him: the increase in literacy, the increase in the Negro
life span, the hard-won victories over tuberculosis in the
slums, the increasing political consciousness among a
people only recently enfranchised, and the slow but sure
increase in civic responsibilities. He likes to believe that
his stories, ofttimes poorly written and none too accurate,
and his deathless editorials fabricated out of paper, ink,
and devotion have contributed.

To him the bright horizon of full growth, full equali-
ty with all men, and full citizenship for America's fif-
teen million stepchildren is ever the challenge ahead.

-29-

A Critical Evaluation of the Negro
Newspaper (Favorable)

T

JLHERE IS NO OTHER

cally self-supporting institution in Negro life and culture
that has made so rapid an advance or that has helped so
whole-heartedly in the acceleration of the social, econ-
omic, and political progress of the Negro as its press.
There have been occasions when the influence of the
press over public opinion seemed to have declined con-
siderably. This was true in the 1940 and 1944 presidential
election campaigns when Republican dollars were often
dictating the editorial policies of many of our news-
papers. By and large, however, the Negro Newspaper,
referred to hereafter as the Negro Press, has always stood
as the champion of the people it served and has rendered
unusually effective -and faithful service to the cause of
America's neglected and mistreated one-tenth. "The
importance of the Negro press for the formation of Negro

-30-

AN EVALUATION (FAVORABLE)

opinion, for the functioning of all other Negro institu-
tions, for Negro leadership and concerted action gener-
ally, is enormous. The Negro press is an educational agen-
cy and a power agency." 1

The Negro Newspaper (Press) has now definitely
passed its initial period of experiment, of evangelism, and
of missionary zeal, and is approaching a professional
standard which approximates and occasionally surpasses
the best standards of many white country dailies or week-
lies. The Negro Press, which is still ninety-eight per
cent a weekly press, is now being financed by Negro
' capital; written, edited, and managed by Negro brains;
set in type by Negro typesetters; made ready to run
thru the press by Negro mechanics; and distributed by
Negro salesmen. Some newspapers are well written and
well edited, and perform their news and advertising
functions serviceably. A few also present a pleasing typo-
graphical appearance. The larger publications like the
Pittsburgh Courier, the Afro-American, the Chicago De-
fender, and the Journal and Guide, whose combined ABC
(Audit Bureau of Circulations) total of 750,000 a week in
June, 1947, is rapidly approaching the million mark
in 1948, are nationally circulating weeklies. The New
Yori( Amsterdam News and the People's Voice, both

1 Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro prob-
lem and modern democracy, Harper and Brothers Publishers.
1944, Volume 2, p. 923.

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

published in New York City, are papers which empha-
size local news and perform the function of city news-
papers as capably as many of the outstanding white dai-
lies, covering, however, only news touching the Negro.

ONE HUNDRED PER CENT AMERICAN

Contrary to what some persons like Pegler and Bilbo
have led the public:, to believe, the Negro Press and its
five million readers are not un-American. In spite of its
vehement tho just attack on lynching and poll-tax, even
while the Second World War was going on, it has cham-
pioned whole-heartedly the cause of the allies. Time and '
again, the Pittsburgh Courier, the Afro-American, the
Chicago Defender, the Journal and Guide, the Peoples
Voice, the New Yor{ Amsterdam News, the New Yorl(
Age, the Chicago Bee, the Kansas City Call, the Ohio
State News, the Cleveland Call and Post, and the St. Lowis
Argus, to mention only a few,. have written editorials
pointing out to their readers that the ultimate salvation
of the Negro lay in the allies winning the war. While a
German-American may look for a home in Germany or
an Italian-American in Italy, the American Negro does
not look for a home in Africa even tho he was originally
brought here from that continent against his will.

Culturally, the American Negro is as different from
the African Negro as any white man and his loyalty to
the American Flag is as strong as that of the descendants

-32-

AN EVALUATION (FAVORABLE)

of the pilgrim fathers. The American Negro's cultural
heritage is one hundred per cent American, for the rigor-
ous life during the days of slavery wiped out all his back-
ground of African culture. Under these circumstances,
the American Negro cannot be anything but loyal to the
United States since that is the only place he can call his
home. 2 Aside from a few uneducated and misguided
persons who were found to have some sort of connection
with a Japanese organization, Negroes have not been
found guilty of sabotage, espionage, and other subversive
activities in war times.

It is true that the Negro Press is becoming more and
more militant in its demand for a real democracy at
home, but this growing impatience is quite natural and
very desirable. As a matter of fact, all of the non-white
races in the world today are demanding greater economic
an r d political freedom, and unless the American Negro
is entirely unintelligent and unprogressive he is bound
to demand his right to be a free citizen in the real sense
of the word, especially when he has but recently fought
"abroad for the cause of freedom.

If the People's Voice under the powerful pen of the
Reverend A. Clayton Powell, Jr., congressman since 1945
and dynamic and dramatic leader of the Negro masses in
Harlem, had been militant during the Second World

2 V. V. Oak, "What of the Negro Press?" Saturday Review
of Literature, 26: 45-46 ft, March 6, 1943.

-33-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

War in putting the issues of the Negro to the forefront to
such an extent that it had led some white persons to
assert that it was an un-American paper, I wonder in
what category would these same persons place the defi-
ant Chicago Tribune during its trial in the summer of
1942 for having published Stanley Johnson's dispatch con-
cerning the battle of Midway and thus exposing strictly
military information. To climax it all, the Tribune held
a gala banquet to celebrate its legal tho not moral victory
over the Justice Department of the United States at a
time when we. were busy fighting a war with Germany,
Italy, and Japan.

This defiant and apparently unpatriotic attitude of
the Tribune which makes both the so-called militant
Negro and white papers appear pale; the daring refusal
of several white companies in the South to accept war
orders during the Second World War because they did
not want to follow the Presidential order against racial
discrimination in the use of labor; the support given to
such refusals by governors of certain Southern states;
the viciously organized opposition against anti-lynching
and FEPC legislation of certain reactionary Northern Re-
publicans and most Southern Democrats who are still
dreaming of the long-vanished glories of plantation days;
the dangerous assertions of several Southern white news-
papermen and other influential white persons that, if
winning the war meant greater freedom for the Negro,

-34-

AN EVALUATION (FAVORABLE)

they would prefer to lose the war; and the revolting reac-
tions of some Southern Democrats and even governors
to the recent forthright pronouncements of President
Truman on the civil rights of Negro Americans in this
country reactions which make every believer in dem-
ocracy hang his head down in shame these and other
similar assertions and acts, and not the cry of the Negro
for justice and fair-play, seem to be not only undemocratic
and, therefore, un-American, but definitely fascist

What the Negro Press is demanding is exactly what
responsible leaders of the now-dead New Deal and all
modern social thinkers interested in saving democracy
have been asserting boldly, namely, that a new economic,
social, and political order must come without delay, now
that the war is over. By trying to meet the pressing needs
of the masses before they reach the exploding point, these
forward thinkers are helping to save capitalism from the
resultant social and economic chaos of revolution and the
tragic death of capitalism as a result of this revolution.

THE CHAMPION OF THE NEGRO CAUSE

The Negro Press arose out of the dire need for racial
leadership, and hence, it is natural that it should be large-
ly racial in its outlook. In fact, its success is due to its
being racial, supplementing as it does the service rendered
by the white press.

- 35-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

In general, the Negro Press is interested in news that
touches the Negro, and rarely, if ever, pays any attention
to news that has no racial significance. The kidnapping o
the Lindbergh baby, one of the biggest stories of the
American press, was hardly noticed by the Negro Press
until it was reported that a Negro had found the body of
the Lindbergh baby. "Dizzy" Dean (white) was of no
news value to the Negro Press until his team was play-
ing against the Monarchs, a Negro team. Since the white
press ignores the Negro almost completely, except to
play him up as a criminal or a clown, the Negro Press is
becoming more and more a necessity to its readers as the
purveyor of news about its own group.

When the world-famous singer Roland Hayes, for
example, was beaten and put into jail in July, 1942, by
the believers in white supremacy in Rome, Georgia, white
newspapers did not give any prominence to this news,
and most of them completely ignored it. Friends of Rol-
and Hayes had to wait until the complete story broke in
the Negro Press with strong editorials on the incident.
While some white papers later gave publicity to this in-
cident, which, in most cases, consisted merely in printing
a United Press release in which Governor Talmadge de-
fended the beating of Roland Hayes on the ground that
he had kicked a policeman, it was the Negro Press that
came to Hayes' defense by pointing out the absurdity of
the charge against this most peaceloving and highly sen-

- 3 6-

AN EVALUATION (FAVORABLE)

sitive man who would never lift his finger against any-
one, even under provocation!

Discussing this phase of the Negro Press, the Fortune
magazine made the following interesting observations
in a special feature article:

The pictures in Negro newspapers are of Negroes or of
mixed Negro-white groups. The news is news of Jim Crow
regulations . . . ; it is news of Negroes winning scholarships,
of Negroes in battle, of Negroes denied commissions, of
Negroes running for local office, of Negroes sitting on com-
mittees with white men, of white men speaking up for Ne-
groes, of white men embarrassed because they have ne-
glected Negroes. And, except when it is news thus angled,
there is no news of national affairs, of the war, of Congress,
of the President, of industry. The Negro press deals single-
mindedly with the problems of being a Negro in the United
States, the prospects, the troubles, the triumphs, and the
despairs of all those for whom the fact of being a Negro
outweighs, for a part of the time at least, all other con-
cerns. 3

The Negro Press is undoubtedly contributing a great
deal to the preservation of American democracy by its
virtuous fight in behalf of its people, is rendering in-
valuable service to the cause of justice and fair-play, and
is capable of understanding and appreciating India's

8 Fortune Press Analysis: Negroes, Fortune, May, 1945, pp.
233 2 35-

-37-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

fight for freedom, Burma's utter apathy toward Eng-
land's success during the last world war, and Africa's
complete distrust of the white man! The Pittsburg Cour-
ier with its "Double V" campaign during the Second
World War made both colored and white readers realize
that we had to win victory not only abroad but also at
home. The Ajro^American with its fearless editorials
coupled with its special editions on vital issues; the Chi-
cago Defender with its new and comparatively progres-
sive policy toward labor and its ability to plan and suc-
cessfully execute campaigns as evidenced by its bold and
frank stand on the fourth term for Roosevelt in 1944; the
Journal and Guide with its non-sensational approach
toward Negro news and opinion and its non-aggressive
yet balanced leadership in the South; the People's Voice
with its dynamic and aggressive tho highly dramatic and
sensational attacks on all questions affecting the Negro's
welfare; the Cleveland Call and Post with its methods of
keeping alive for a long period of time any cause it may
have espoused; these, along with many other newspapers,
have been serving the people of America in a commend-
able way.

WIDENING HORIZON

The advance of the Negro Press has been made in
credulous aping of the white dailies. Negro newspapers
are still startlingly similar to white papers in structure,

AN EVALUATION (FAVORABLE)

duplicating their good and bad features alike. As yet,
they do not seem to show any special evidence of a
"distinctive personality" other than their almost one hun-
dred per cent racial emphasis. This lack of distinctive-
ness may be due to the fact that Negro journalists have
been so preoccupied with bringing their papers abreast
of those of the whites that they have neglected to intro-
duce new patterns into the business of collecting and
editing news. 4

How well they have succeeded in modernizing their
papers will become evident from a study of the following
indices of rapidly growing maturity: the organization of
several press and syndicate services; the printing of na-
tional and local editions, and different editions for dif-
ferent states or regions; the emergent use of color presses
by the more opulent weeklies (suspended during the
Second World War); the appearance of strong news-
paper affiliations; the growing patronage of white busi-
ness enterprises as evidenced by the number of "ads" from
this source; the creation of extensive promotional activi-
ties among both their colored carriers and the general
public; and the increasing space that is alloted to foreign
news that affects the fate of all the colored peoples of
the world.

This last international aspect of the problem of the

4 John Syrjamaki, "The Negro Press in 1938," Sociology and
Social Research, 24: i, September-October, 1939, p. 44.

-39-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

"colored 1 races of the world, first introduced by Dr.
W. R B. Du Bois thru the Crisis magazine as early as
the First World War, will now be found in all the better
class weeklies. "The editor's horizon," observes Professor
Detweiler, "is at least as wide as that of a small-town
white editor and often wider. Negro writers are inter-
ested in South Africa, where there is a huge race prob-
lem; in Brazil, where the color line is indistinct; in Soviet
Russia . . . ; in the Virgin Islands, Haiti, Santo Domingo,
Liberia. From Spain, toward the end of 1937, Langston
Hughes was writing articles for the Afro-American,
which sent a man to Russia to interview Stalin, to Berlin
for the Olympics, and to Geneva to witness the appear-
ance of Haile Selassie before the League of Nations." 5

The large number of Negro foreign correspondents
in the Second World War is a further proof of the grow-
ing world-consciousness of the Negro Press. From the
opening of the war to 1946, the Chicago Defender had
five foreign correspondents: Deton J. Brooks, David Orro,
George Padmore, Edward B. Toles, and Enoc P. Waters;
the Journal and Guide had five: Henry }. Cole, Lemuel
E. Graves, John "Rover" Jordan, P. Bernard Young, Jr.,
and Thomas W. Young; the Afro-American had eight:
"Art" M. Carter, Herbert M. Frisby, Payton Grey, Max
Johnson, Elizabeth M. Phillips (first Negro woman war

Frederick G. Detweiler, "The Negro Press Today," Ameri-
can Journal of Sociology, 44: 3, November 1938, p. 398.

-40-

AN EVALUATION (FAVORABLE)

correspondent in this war), Ollie Stewart, Vincent Tubbs,
and Francis Yancy; the Pittsburgh Courier had eight:
Edward Baker, Haskell Cohen, Randy Dixon, Collins
George, Oliver Harrington, Theodore A. Stanford, Ed-
gar T. Rouzeau, and Billy Rowe; and the Houston In-
former had one: Elgin Hychew. In addition to these, the
Associated Negro Press (ANP) had three full time for-
eign correspondents: Rudolph Dunbar, Frank D. Gor-
dien, and George Coleman Moore, and six part time cor-
respondents; the National Negro Publishers Association
(NNPA) had three: Frank E. Bolden, Charles H. Loeb,
and Fletcher P. Martin.

Time and again, the leading Negro newspapers de-
nounced the Hitlerian tactics of Winston Churchill in
his dealings with India and for his gall in imprisoning
men like Gandhi and Nehru who were fighting for their
country's freedom even as Churchill was fighting for his.
But while Churchill was being hailed as a savior of dem-
ocracy, Gandhi and Nehru were put into prison like com-
mon criminals, and the White Press did not seem con-
cerned very much about it. The Negro Press, on the other
hand, alert as it had become in recent years in matters
affecting all colored races of the world, detected the hy-
pocrisy and duplicity behind this international scene.
"There is probably not a single issue of any one of the
big weeklies which does not point out the failure of the
British to give India independence, or contain editorial

-41-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

reflections to the effect that the defeat in Singapore and
elsewhere was due to the Britishers' having maltreated
and lost the confidence of the natives. China, moreover,
cannot be expected to have too much trust in America
which discriminates against all colored people. 516

6 Myrdal, op. cit, 9 Volume 2, p. 915.

-42

4

A Critical Evaluation of the Negro
Newspaper (Unfavorable)

TT

JL AAVING DISCUSSED some of

the shining points of the Negro Press in the preceding
chapter, let us turn our attention to some of the weak ones
which make the Negro Press so easily vulnerable to the
attacks of men like Bilbo, Pegler, and others.

SENSATIONALISM

If the Negro Press is often accused of sensationalism
or of featuring crime stories, it can truthfully retort that
it learned this art from such widely read white papers
as the New Yor^ Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, and
the Hearst chain newspapers. The Pittsburgh Courier,
the Afro-American, the Chicago Defender, and the Peo-
ple's Voice, the first two of which have the largest circu-
lation of all Negro newspapers, definitely go in for sensa-
tionalism. On the other hand, papers like the Journal and

- 43 "

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

Guide, the New Yor^ Age, and a few others, which are
rendering great service to the Negro community, do so
without stooping to follow the footsteps of "yellow" jour-
nalism.

One cannot but deplore, however, the following type
of journalistic license, especially when it cpmes from a
newspaper with unlimited possibilities. Writing under
the appropriately named column, "Soapbox," the Rever-
end Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., the leader of the Harlem
masses whose everyday language he certainly knows how
to use, a preacher of the gospel, founder of a dynamic
newspaper, and now a congressman, had this to say in
his paper, the People's Voice:

The attack by Martin Dies on Mary McLeod Bethune is
the last straw. Dies has already won infamy as an interna-
tional jackass, but today, with your permission, let us omit
the "jack." Any low cracker scum like Dies who will dare
to point his finger at a great American woman like Dr.
Bethune deserves to be publicly purged. Dies is no good,
never has been any good, and never will be any good. The
sooner he is buried the better. He is one of the few people in
history whose body has begun to stink before it died. Dies is
Public Skunk No. i. There is only one place for him to live
and that's in Hitler's out-house. . . .

THE AXIS NEEDS DIES TODAY BUT WE DON'T.
TO HELL WITH HIMP

7 The People's Voice, October 3, 1942, p. 5.

-44-

AN EVALUATION (UNFAVORABLE)

The "Soapbox" was continued by Powell in the same
tone until he severed all his connections with that paper
by the end of 1946.

The author regards Powell as a dynamic, useful, and
courageous leader who has done a great deal of good in
awakening the masses, especially those residing in Har-
lem, and who will be able to do more good as days go by,
and the colored masses all over the world are proud of
his actual accomplishments. Nevertheless, it seems that
to lead the masses one does not have to stoop to such a
low level that the cultural veneer, which a good educa-
tion is supposed to have given to every learned man, dis-
appears. The theatrical performances and utterances of
Powell do bewilder many of his friends and admirers
and cause them despair, tho these utterances do, undoubt-
edly, keep him in the limelight. Well might Powell say
in his characteristic way, "To hell with the intelligentsia
and the white-collared men! I am the messiah of the
masses and I must talk in a language that the masses will
understand." The fact that his own collar is ultra-white
and that he wears the preacher's garb does not worry him.
His motto for the common man is: "Don't do as I do,
but do as I say," and the common man seems to accept
this motto as the last word from heaven, believing hon-
estly that "the messiah can do no wrong." That Powell
is inevitably the leader of the masses and that he knows
how to lead them is beyond question, tho one is often

-45-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

afraid that he might lead them wrong. In any event, he
has awakened Harlem, and that in itself is a worthy
accomplishment.

The emphasis on sensationalism is often justified by
Negro journalists on the ground that "that is what the
public wants." It would be more honest to say that that is
what the scandal- or sensation-lover journalists think the
public wants, which, of course, is quite a different story.
If one were to evaluate public tastes thru the eyes of these
newspapers one would arrive at the inevitable conclusion
that the public has no heart, no brains, no conscience, and
no ideals or worthy aspirations; that the public is cruel
and mean at heart and entirely .disinterested in its own
uplift or that of its children; that it loves to read filth,
devour stories of murder, crooked politics, vilification,
misrepresentation, and Machiavelian art; and that, such
being the case, the public taste having reached the lowest
level of degradation the press cannot do anything about
it. So, the scandal- or sensation-mongers contend, the
smart thing to do is to cater to this degraded taste of the
public even more, "make hay while the sun shines," and
let the public pay for it since it is in the mood to do so.
The pity of it all is that these so-called gentlemen of the
press fail to realize that what they think is the taste of
the public is often the reflection of their own hidden
tastes.

-46-

AN EVALUATION (UNFAVORABLE)

SO-CALLED "ENLIGHTENED SELF-INTEREST"

One should not be completely blinded by the rapid
stride of the Negro Press, discussed at greater length in
the next chapter, and fail to notice some of its unpleasant
features. The fact that some newspapers have been able
to survive thru the depression, have become more afflu-
ent, and have enlarged their circulation enormously does
not necessarily mean that they were always serving the
interest of the people best or that they were idealistic and
impartial in their approach to all questions. In our pres-
ent competitive economic and social order and with our
emphasis upon material wealth as the key to social ad-
vancement, "survival of the fittest" does not necessarily
mean survival of the morally or even physically fit, but
rather it means survival of the cunning and the ruthless
who are often motivated by greed, referred to by the
more pleasing tho less accurate and thoroly euphemistic
phrase, "enlightened self-interest." Such persons know
how to get things done by hook or crook.

It seems that, by and large, the newspapers of today,
be they colored or white, do not seem to have the zeal of
real crusaders passionately devoted to the principles of
democracy, freedom, honesty, and fair play, especially
when such principles hurt their pocketbooks. On the
other hand, many newspapers seem quite willing to sell
their pages to anyone who is willing to pay the proper

-47-

' THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

price. In this respect, most Negro journalists have fol-
lowed the steps of white journalists and have become
economic opportunists, which, of course, makes them
"good business men." According to diem, any policy is
good in business if it pays well and shows higher profits,
especially if it is a generally-accepted and tacitly-followed
policy among 'other business men. By and large, Ameri-
can business men do not seem to be concerned with the
long-range effects of their policies upon social welfare.
This apathy on their part may be partly due to their sel-
fishness, partly to their ignorance, and partly to their
lack of vision in looking ahead into the future.

Discussing the general policies of one of the "Big
Four" Negro papers during the presidential campaign of
1944, one of the author's students made the following
observation:

One notes that while undoubtedly favoring FDR's fourth
term, this paper continues to include in its pages large and
impressive advertisements for Dewey an'd Bricker. But wheth-
er this fact is to be interpreted as an evidence of a half-
hearted attempt to show the point of view of the opposite
side,' or whether it is motivated merely by a lucrative inter-
est, there might be some doubt. 8

8 Ethel Coleman in a term paper on "A sociological study of
the ... newspaper published during the last six weeks of the 1944
presidential campaign," written as a partial requirement in the
course on "General Sociology" given by the author at Wilberforce
University in 1944-45.

AN EVALUATION (UNFAVORABLE)

This quotation is given here because it represents a
point of view that cannot be easily ignored. It is a thought-
provoking statement and just the type one should expect
from young people, but the owner of the newspaper, to
whom these remarks were sent, took exceptions to it in
the following words:

Such a reference is a serious reflection upon the integrity
of any newspaper. The only thing a newspaper has to sell,
with the exception of subscriptions, is its advertising space,
which is its main source of revenue. All legitimate newspa-
pers display political advertising from all parties. The fact
that our newspaper carried display advertising placed by the
Republican National Committee and plainly marked "Paid
Advertising*' did not mean that our paper was attempting in
a half-hearted manner to present the other side. Such a view
displays only the ignorance of the person who would write
even in a student paper such a statement. 9

The student's counter response was that instead of
putting the words "Paid Advertising" at the top in bold
type, they were placed in tiny type at the bottom, hardly
noticeable by the average reader. Furthermore, the ad-
vertisement did not carry its message in unbiased words
but in general and suggestive statements maliciously de-
rogatory to the Roosevelt administration statements

9 From a letter dated January 6, 1945, written by the owner
of the newspaper to the author when he submitted to him the
student's paper in question.

-49-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

which the masses could easily misinterpret as those in
which the newspaper itself believed. In fact, it was this
belief in being able to mislead the masses, in the first
place, that had led the Republican party to pay so heavily
for the clever and suggestive "ads" which appeared all
over the nation.

The reasoning of the owner of the newspaper, in a
sense, is very much akin to that followed by our big
business men year in and year out business men who
seem always willing to sell arms to both sides of the
fighting forces, as they actually did in the late thirties to
various warring factions in China for continuing their
civil war, to Japan when she started an unjustifiable war
of greed against China, and to Italy when she attacked
without the slightest provocation a helpless nation like
Ethiopia. As if this were not enough, our business men
supplied scrap iron to Japan for a long period of years
the scrap iron she used in making deadly weapons with
which she struck us at Pearl Harbor. Yet, these very
business men naively wondered why things got out of
their control and why the ever-dupable public was so
ready to accuse them for all the ills of war. "Business is
business," as Lanny Budd's 10 father would put it, or "mon-

10 Lanny Budd is the dynamic, philosophic, and fictitious
character drawn by Upton Sinclair and made the hero of a series
of novels depicting the intriguing and shocking scenes behind
thq international and intra-national life of Europe and America.

-50-

AN EVALUATION (UNFAVORABLE)

ey does not stink" (pecunia non olei), as the Romans
used to say, are also the mottoes of our successful busi-
ness men of today, both white and colored.

Even at the risk of annoying some of our readers,
it seems necessary to point out here that it is just this
sort of utilitarian philosophy that has made our youth of
today distrust our political, business, religious, and educa-
tional leadership. To the youth's mind, the end does not
justify the means if, in the process of attaining the end,
the means used tend to destroy that intangible something
we call soul or spiritual life and, thus, obscure our sense
of perception. To make matters worse, even many of our
religious leaders seem to have no compunction of con-
science in accepting tainted money whenever they can
get their hands on it, presumably for the noble purpose
of building monuments of our faith in God. Yet, they
naively wonder why the youth of today is slowly but
steadily losing its faith in their leadership. These leaders,
too, are forgetting the simple fact that truth, like Christi-
anity, has no compromise even tho its pedlers have pros-
tituted it and have placed it on a mercenary basis. Most
newspapers, of course, follow this utilitarian philosophy,
often under the pretext that they want to give opportunity
to both' sides in presenting their cases, but, in reality, for
the money they get out of it. After all, they maintain,
pecunia non oletl

-51-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

QUISLINGISM: THE NEGRO'S GREATEST ENEMY

Let us now take some really serious cases of material-
istic journalism where the profit motive is such a domi-
nant factor and where service to one's own race so com-
pltetly forgotten that quite often the net result is actual
disservice or harm to the race.

Harping on the theme that a fourth term for Roose-
velt would mean the ending of the two party system,
the Pittsburgh Courier wrote editorially on its front page
in bold type as follows:

POWER LEADS TO TYRANNY. The Negro needs
only to guess at what his position would be under a one-party
system. Look at Germany! Look at Italy! Look at the South!
All are the results of the one-party system. Italy is gone, Ger-
many is doomed. The South is America's poorhouse: Poor
hospitals, the poorest schools, the poorest social conditions
and the lowest wages. Whatever tends to destroy the two-
party system in this country is dangerous for the Negro. 11

One thing is certain. The Negro Press has copied
well the Machiavellian art of effective writing from the
"yellow" press, the curse of American journalism the
curse which permits its adherents to turn freedom of
speech and press into license. "Drink Dr. Pepper, boys
and girls, at 10, 2, and 4" says a business man's mouth-
piece even tho such a concoction can do no good to any

^Pittsburgh Courier, September 30, 1944, p. i.
-52-

AN EVALUATION (UNFAVORABLE)

youngster's health. "Smoke Camels for your nerves,' 7
comes in the soothing and almost beseeching voice of
another mouthpiece even tho it is universally admitted

EYERV VOTE FOR MR.ROOSEVELT IS A VOTE

FOR,RANKIN-CONNALLV-COX-BILBO-EASTLAND

ANP ALLTHATTHE SOUTHERN POLITICIANS REPRESENT,

that a stimulant like tobacco increases one's nervousness
in the long run even if it may temporarily have the oppo-
site effect Athletic directors almost uniformly forbid the
use of tobacco and colas and other stimulants when they

-53-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

want their teams to remain in -one hundred per cent
shape. "Use Dremal Shampoo for falling hair/' assures
the radio voice of a third mouthpiece who himself, so the
story goes, is bald-headed. The art of supersalesmanship
has made many a family buy things beyond its means as
well as its needs, but, what is worse, buy things which
are both individually as well as socially undesirable and
harmful, and the desire for which is created by mis-
leading, and often untruthful, advertisements.

Discussing racial conflicts in the United States under
the editorial caption, "The New Deal and Riots," this
same widely-read, seventeen - different - region - edition
newspaper, the Pittsburgh Courier, asserted two weeks
later, a la Hearst style, "that such [racial] conflicts may
take place after the war is not unlikely, and if they do,
the responsibility for them can be placed squarely at the
door of the New Deal, because this administration's
[Roosevelt's] policies lead directly to racial conflict and
have been responsible for them in the past." 12

The article then went on to cite instances of racial
conflicts all over the United States, including the Detroit
riots and the killings and beatings of Negro soldiers in
the South, and ended in blandly placing all the blame
for these conflicts on President Roosevelt. A Bilbo could
not have written a better anti-Roosevelt and anti-New
Deal article using also the Bilbo logic! Let an intelligent

^Pittsburgh Courier, October 14, 1944, p. 6.

-54-

AN EVALUATION (UNFAVORABLE)

teen-age girl express her reactions in her own words to
the editorials and other writings in the Pittsburgh Courier
appearing during the last six weeks' presidential cam-
paign of 1944:

Speaking from a purely non-partisan standpoint, such
statements as made in the Courier against President Roose-
velt and his administration should be discounted by the intelli-
gent and discriminating reader, as mere contravention de-
signed to fill the narrow minds of the crowd with seeds of
hatred and malice. Of course, anyone can see the injustice
being meted out to those of Negro blood in all phases of social
life! Yet, to place the responsibility for this situation solely
on President Roosevelt and his administration is a mistake.

To say that the president has passively contributed to
these situations thru failure to do anything about them comes
closer to the truth. But he could not plant the murderous and
baneful seeds of racial hatred so deeply into the hearts of men
from the South and also the North. These feelings of racial
animosity have almost been institutionalized so that they are
common and learned patterns of responses of whites against
those of Negroid blood. 13

It is not the author's contention that President Roose-
velt was above criticism. What he strongly objects to is the

18 Irma Clark in a term paper on "A sociological study of the
Pittsburgh Courier published during the last six weeks of the 1944
presidential campaign/' written as partial requirement in the
course on "General Sociology*' given by the author at Wilberforce
University in 1944-1945.

-55-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

CAN WE AFFORD TO DO THIS? Pittsburgh Courier
/'JSl.at'H? 1 . November 4.

stooping to the use of unfair and sensational methods to
gain one's end. Whatever one might think of Roosevelt's
domestic and international policy, even his worst enemies

AN EVALUATION (UNFAVORABLE)

have often conceded that he was undoubtedly the friend
of the underdog, including the Negro. To vilify him by
cartoons and treat him as if he were a Ku Kluxer is the
unkindest cut one could ever give to one's friend. Even
the conservative New Yorl^ Times, so prone to be imperi-
alistic and dogmatic, credited Roosevelt for "having rec-
ognized minority groups, their rights and privileges, es-
pecially those of the Negro." 14

J. A. Rogers' assertion 15 that "the Negroes are turning
away from the Democratic party because they see the
awful control the South wielded over their interests
strikes me as a misrepresentation of facts," continues this
keen-minded teen-age girl.

He [Rogers] seems to give the impression that the Dem-
ocrats and Republicans have adopted a strict policy of dis-
crimination and liberality respectively in regard to the Negro.
This impression is fallacious because each party adopts poli-
cies of this sort only when it is to its advantage politically. If
they find that giving a few Negroes jobs or releasing a few
occupations for Negroes will help them in their campaign,
they will do this. But if they see that they will gain more by
kicking the Negro around and keeping him out of good jobs,
they will do this just as readily. The fact that some Negroes
are again swinging over to the Republican party docs not
mean that they actually think that this step will miraculously

Yor^ Times, Editorial, October, 1944.
^Pittsburgh Courier, October 21, 1944, p. 7.

-57-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

dissolve all forms of racial discrimination, but it merely illus-
trates the human tendency to have hope or faith in a
change." 16

"A straight Republican ticket is the strongest and the
most intelligent protest against racial discrimination and
indignities," avowed the Pittsburgh Courier in another
editorial 17 titled, "New Deal's 'Roll of Shame.' " Discus-
sing this editorial, the same student makes these wise
comments:

Imagine telling a reading public, supposedly intelligent,
to vote a straight ticket! The Negro, if anyone, should be
more discriminating about everybody elected to any office of
authority in which he may wield control over the cherished
ideals and aspirations of his people and whose influence may
be felt for years. Many disappointments have been felt by
the Negro when after many promises of a Utopia of social
living he was again forced into the role of a slave or an utter
wretch. Why then, when he is given the chance to place a
man in office who will at least give him some form of liber-
ality, should he hand over his only claim to being a citizen
by ^discriminatingly voting a straight ticket? Even the
much-abused Political Action Committee created by the more
progressive and dynamic labor organization, the CIO, did
not advocate the voting of a straight ticket!" 18

16 Clark, op. cit.

^Pittsburgh Courier, November 4, 1944, p. 4.

18 Clark, op. cit.

- 5 8-

AN EVALUATION (UNFAVORABLE)

Front* Page, Pittsburgh. Cotirier, Nov* 4, '44

blew Deal's 'Roll Of Shame'

f "

President Roosevelt is Commander-ifi*Chief of the
U. S. armed forces. Under war-tynfc exigencies, he
has the extraordinary power to end segregation and
discrimination in all branches of the armed services.

Below, The Pittsburgh Courier is publishing "a list
of some of the Negro boys IN UNIFORM who have
met death . . . NOT KILLED IN ACTION FOR THEIR
COUNTRY, but MURDERED by their country. They
paid the supreme sacrifice on the Altar of Dixie preju-
dice and our COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF has -not only
said nothing. . HE HAS DONE NOTHING.

HERE IS THE "ROLL OF SHAME 11 :

-59-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

The Afro-American, another of the four big papers
with the second largest circulation among Negro news-
papers, and the New Yori( Amsterdam News were also
as malicious and vicious and illogical as the Pittsburgh
Courier in their attacks on Roosevelt and his administra-
tion. Says another student, after reading the issues of the
Afro-American during the 1944 presidential election:

The Afro has used every trick and trade in journalism to
discredit Roosevelt. ... By mentioning the name of Bilbo
and the possibility of his becoming president some day for as
long as sixteen years or more if we now allowed Roosevelt to
become president for the fourth term, the editor attempted to
throw a scare into the minds of the people. . . . The Afro
portrays the Republican party as having views synonymous
with those of the late Wendell L. Wilkie. Any intelligent
man knows that this is not so. 19

The long quotations above, few of the many that were
written in the same strain, are given here as clear signs
of hope in our youth of today signs which indicate that
the youth is doing its own thinking and that neither
the Courier nor the Afro-American nor the Amsterdam
News, all of which were villif ying Roosevelt, seem to have

19 Waltcr Crider in a term paper on "A sociological study of
the Afro-American published during the last six weeks of the 1944
presidential campaign," written as a partial requirement in the
course on "General Sociology" given by the author at Wilberforce
University in 1944-1945.

-60-

AN EVALUATION (UNFAVORABLE)

been able to influence public opinion very much in cer-
tain matters, in spite of their large circulation. The reader
should not get the impression that these three were the

"The Moving Finger Writes, and . . .*

Page Four
JLfro-Americ*n, Sept

only papers which went all-out anti-Roosevelt in this
Republican campaign against the New Deal. The general
line-up of some of the important Negro newspapers print-
ed near and above the Mason-Dixon line, either as pro-
Roosevelt or anti-Roosevelt papers during the 1944 presi-
dential election, is given below.

-61-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

PRO-ROOSEVELT

Chicago Defender
People's Voice
Journal and Guide
New Yor% Age
Los Angeles Sentinel
St. Louts Argus
California Eagle
Ohio State News
Washington Tribune
Michigan Chronicle
Louisville Defender

ANTI-ROOSEVELT

Pittsburgh Courier
Amsterdam Star News*
Afro-American
Kansas City Call
Cleveland Call and Post
Philadelphia Tribune
Philadelphia Independent
Chicago World
St. Louis American

*Now Amsterdam News

The word anti-Roosevelt rather than pro-Dewey is
used here advisedly. A careful study of the Republican
presidential campaign indicated that most of its effort
was spent in discrediting and denouncing Roosevelt and
the New Deal instead of building up Dewey and the mil-
lenium he was expected to bring in our domestic econo-
my. Commenting on this Quislingism, the Negro's great-
est internal enemy, Conrad 20 makes the following per-
tinent observations:

It is the Democratic and Republican Parties which bear "
the first responsibility for such "deal/' They deduce it is

Conrad, Jim Crow America, New York: Duell, Sloan
and Pearce, 1947, p. 79.

-62-

AN EVALUATION (UNFAVORABLE)

cheaper to buy the Negro press than to pass progressive
minority legislation. Also, when they pay off the Negro papers
they feel that their obligation is largely taken care of and
they don't have to worry; with the Negro publishers and chief
editors involved in guilt the major parties can ignore much
of the year-round pressure which the Negro press exerts.
What this process amounts to, finally, is another form of
supremacist control of the Negro group.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

Further evidence of how well Negro newspapers are
copying white ones in the suppression of ideas contrary
to their own, real or alleged, and how these champions
of freedom often are ready to destroy free thought is
seen in the following actions of some newspapers during
the 1944 Presidential election as reported by the Negro
magazine, Headlines, later known as Headlines and Pic-
tures, and finally ceasing publication in 1946.

Several nationally known Negro columnists broke with
their publishers over their political differences. Erudite Dr.
W. E. B. Du Bois resigned from the New Yor^ Amsterdam
Star News which paced all Negro papers in support of Dewey
and Bricker. Horace- Clay ton of Chicago found his copy omit-
ted in the Pittsburgh Courier which backed the Republicans.
Roy Wilkins continued to receive his check but his copy did
not appear in the Amsterdam Star News. . . .

White House Correspondent Harry McAlpin was cen-
sured by Republican publishers who subscribe to the NNPA

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

news service for giving too much copy about President Roose-
velt. Harry replied that he was assigned to cover the White
House and until Dewey got there it would be reasonable to
expect that most of the copy would center around President
Roosevelt, the present occupant. 21

^Headlines, December, 1944, pp. 23-24.

-64-

How the Negro Newspaper Functions

.HE FOLLOWING PAKT of the

study of Negro newspapers is limited to the consideration
of number, circulation, and subscription rates; publishing
establishments and mechanical features; and labor and
wage policies. The observations are based primarily upon
a careful examination of sixty-six Negro newspapers cho-
sen on the basis of geographical and population distribu-
tion. The newspapers marked with an asterisk in the di-
rectory of newspapers given in Appendix II are the sixty-
six newspapers that were chosen for this study.

Credit for a large portion of this section of the chapter
is due to Professor John Syrjamaki of Yale University
who kindly granted the author permission to use the
statistical data gathered in his own study of the "Negro
Press in 1938," referred to in Chapter 3. Professor Syrja-
maki's study was taken as an excellent model for a further
study of the same subject which included sixty-six papers

-65-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

instead of sixty-one. In this way, all statistical material
and conclusions were brought to January, 1948.

NUMBER AND CIRCULATION

The Negro Press is represented in thirty-six states and
the District of Columbia. The only states not having any
representation are the following twelve: Connecticut, Del-
aware, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire,
New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont,
and Wyoming. With the exception of Delaware, the
states not having Negro newspaper representation have
a sparse Negro population and are either Northern or
Western states. Delaware has a college paper, but it can-
not be properly classified as a newspaper in the sense
in which the word is used in this book. West Virginia's
only so-called newspaper, the Star Journal, is really a
monthly magazine. This state, therefore, does not have a
<?#tfpaper in the real sense of that word. It has, however,
another important magazine called Color which deals
with Negro life and has a substantial circulation of
110,000. For this reason, West Virginia has been included
among the states having Negro Press representation.

In June 1945, there were, according to the Bureau of
the Census, no general newspapers, 45 religious, college,
advertising, fraternal, and other miscellaneous papers, and
100 magazines and bulletins, making a grand total of

-66-

HOW THE NEWSPAPER FUNCTIONS

255 Negro periodicals. 1 Adding to this number the names
of other periodicals listed in Ayer's Directory of News-
papers and Periodicals? the International Year Book
Number of the Editor and Publisher The Fourth Es-
tate? the Negro Handbook^ the Negro Year Booltf and
the author's own files, and omitting those which have
ceased publication for one reason or another, there were,
at the beginning of 1948, a total of 169 newspapers, 56

^Negro Newspapers and Periodicals in the United States: 1945,
Bureau of the Census, Negro Statistical Bulletin No. i, Washing-
ton, D.C., August 29, 1946. This directory lists all the different
state editions of the Afro-American separately. Since a very large
portion of the news and national advertising in all the Afro
editions are identical, there seems to be no sound justification for
listing each edition separately without following the same pro-
cedure with reference to the different state editions of the
Courier and the Journal Guide. Nevertheless, each Afro edition
has been counted as a separate newspaper in this discussion.

^Directory of Newspapers and Periodicals, 1948, Philadel-
phia: N. W. Ayer & Sons, Inc., 1948.

International Year Book Number, 1948 (Section on Negro
Periodicals in the United States), Editor and Publisher , January,
1948.

*Negro Handbook, 1946-47, New York: Current Books, Inc.,
1947, pp. 237-250; also similar sections in previous issues.

5 Negro Year Eoo\ (Chapter 16), Tuskegee Institute: De-
partment of Research and Records, 1947, pp. 383-404; also similar
chapters in previous issues.

-67-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

college campus publications of all types, and over 100
religious, fraternal, general, and other papers, bulletins,
and magazines. This gives us a total of over 325 periodi-
cals of all types.

Of the 169 newspapers reporting information on the
frequency of publication, 3 were semi-monthlies or bi-
weeklies, 159 weeklies, 5 semi-weeklies, and 2 dailies,
with a total circulation of over two million (2,120,000).
Of this total, a little over one million (1,007,500) com-
prised the Audit Bureau of Circulations figures totaling
19 newspapers. The circulation figures of the remaining
150 newspapers were either estimates of publishers or
their sworn statements, or were secured from figures
released by advertising representatives of publishers.

The Second World War undoubtedly stimulated great
interest of the Negro in his press and the comparatively
comfortable increase in his earning power made it possible
for him to translate this interest in supporting his race
papers. It is, therefore, very easy to understand the rapid
increase in the circulation of Negro newspapers from a
little over one million in 1937 to more than two million
in 1947, an increase of almost one hundred per cent.

Mere circulation figures, of course, do not give one
the actual number of the reading public. Quite often, one
paper is read by several persons. On the other hand, a
small number of persons in the better-income group buy
at least two papers: one, a local Negro paper, and the

-68-

HOW THE NEWSPAPER FUNCTIONS

other, a national Negro paper. On a conservative estimate
it would be safe to assume that out of the nine and one-
fourth million Negroes who are fourteen years of age
and over, close to five million read some Negro news-
paper each week.

Of the 169 newspapers, 85 were published in the South
where three-fourths of the total Negro population resides,
66 in the North, and the remaining 1 8 in the West. The
total circulation of the Southern papers was less than
forty per cent of the total; that of the Northern papers
was more than fifty-six per cent of the total and close to
one and one-half times as much as that of Southern pa-
pers. One might be tempted to draw the conclusion from
the larger circulation of Northern papers that the North-
ern Negro might be vastly more literate, that he might
have a greater love for reading, and that he must be more
race conscious than his Southern brother. One might also
be led to believe that almost every other Northern Negro,
be he young or old, child or adult, was a purchaser of
some Negro newspaper since there were but a little over
three million Negroes in the North with a total circula-
tion of one and one quarter million Negro papers each
week.

A more factual explanation of this larger circulation
of Northern papers is that owing to their better news
coverage and their generally fearless editorial policies
they are in great demand in the South. The Chicago Dc~

-69-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

fender, for example, had a local circulation of only 62,300
as against non-local or national circulation of 131,600
during the six months ending September 30, 1947. This
means that over two-thirds of its ckculation was national.
Over 66 per cent of this national circulation, however,
was in the South.

The four leading newspapers with their total audited
circulation of over four-fifths of a million (812,700) as
of September, 1947, are:

Pittsburgh Courier (all editions) 277,900

Afro-American (all editions) 235,600

Chicago Defender (both editions) 193,900

Amsterdam News (weekly total) 105,300

Ohio has the largest number of Negro newspapers if
one were to include the three editions of the Pittsburgh
Courier (Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Ohio) as separate
papers. These three editions had a total circulation of
over 20,000, which is more than any other Ohio paper
except the Cleveland Call and Post. This gives Ohio a
total of fourteen newspapers. California has the second
largest number of papers (twelve) since 1947, and Florida
and Texas come next with eleven papers.

Distribution of newspapers is done by mail and thru
news-stands in large cities. In recent years, many railroad
news-stands have been carrying nationally-known peri-
odicals. There is, however, at least one distributing agency

-70-

HOW THE NEWSPAPER FUNCTIONS

owned and operated by Negroes. On January i, 1938, the
Great Eastern News Corporation was established by Leroy
Brannic in New York City as a newspaper distribution
agency, with the People's Voice as its first customer. 6 By
1945, it had obtained fourteen Negro publications and one
white, giving the corporation a total circulation of 500,000
a week.

SUBSCRIPTION RATES

No more than a mere handful of Negro papers have
built a sufficient volume of advertising to secure any im-
portant source of income from it. The volume of revenue
derived from job-shop printing enjoyed by Negro news-
papers is also very small. As a result, in most cases, a
substantial financial burden of the Negro Press tends to
fall largely upon circulation income which is consider-
able. The average price of the better class papers on a
subscript!^ basis varies from four to five dollars a year
and for oSier papers from two to three dollars a year.
On a retail basis, these papers generally sell for between
ten and twelve cents a copy for most large city papers,
and five to seven cents for others. The racial nature of the
Negro newspaper makes its sale possible at such' a com-
paratively high price even tho die average size of the

6 Walter H. Rollins, The Negro Press in America: A content
analysis of five newspapers, (Master's thesil at the University oJ
Minnesota), June, 1945, f>. 34.

-71-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

paper has been reduced considerably since the Second
World War. Generally, however, these papers are again
gradually going back to their previous pre-war size.

PUBLISHING ESTABLISHMENTS

Information on business circumstances of the Negro
Press is virtually impossible to secure. It can be surmised
only from an occasional news item and from a cross sec-
tional analysis of Negro papers. Mr. G. James Fleming
estimated in 1935 that the Negro Press represented an
evaluation of over $3,000,000 and gave whole or part time
employment to about 6,000. Presuming this figure to be
fairly accurate, it would appear that the rapid stride made
by the Negro Press in the last thirteen years and the pres-
ent high cost of material ought to bring the total evalu-
ation to a figure close to $10,000,000 and total part and
full time employment nearing 10,000.

The business and printing structure have not kept
stride with the development of news functions in the
Negro Press. A study of sixty-six representative news-
papers revealed that, with the exception of a dozen papers,
most of them are typographically inferior, even tho, in
many cases, they are well edited. While an assortment of
type faces is used for headlines and advertising displays,
the quality of printing and typographical arrangement is
so poorly done that they often look unattractive. An un-
balanced and overcrowded appearance with pictures care-

-72-

HOW THE NEWSPAPER FUNCTIONS

lessly scattered everywhere seems to be the rule. A few
papers have shown remarkable improvement in this re-
spect in recent years. The People's Voice, during its first
year of publication when it was fashioned after the P.M.
newspaper and printed in P.M.'s plant, and the Journal
and Guide have been among the leaders which presented
an attractive display of type and balanced arrangement.
The Chicago Sunday Bee also had a balanced arrange-
ment, but the quality of the printing was poor. It was
edited for several years by Miss Olive M. Diggs, a capable,
young, college graduate, and often carried editorials of
very high caliber. It never catered to sensationalism dur-
ing the life time of its publisher. In late 1946 and soon
after the death of its founder and publisher, Anthony
Overton, a successful business man of excellent reputa-
tion, the Bee made a futile attempt to survive and changed
its format to a tabloid size, but within a few months after
that it ceased publication in the latter half of 1947. The
loss of this newspaper has been a distinct blow to high
class journalism.

Inking and press work of most newspapers with small
circulation are inferior. Evidence of second hand or worn-
out presses is apparent in the appearance of many papers.
Line cuts are used generously by even the poorest papers
in contrast with the number used by white dailies, but
only a few of the more affluent papers can afford the use
of better grade halftones. Generally, neither the line cuts

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

nor the halftones, however, appear well in print except
in a few leading papers, suggesting again the use of in-
ferior presses and of poor engraving in the case of half-
tones. 7 Probably the great majority of small Negro papers
are issued from unpretentious side-street shops having
second hand or inadequate equipment, generally inclu-
ding a flat bed cylinder press, one linotype, a casting box,
a job press or two, and limited fonts of display type.

There is, however, a pronounced evidence toward
better plants and equipment. Periodic mention of news-
papers that have moved into new specially constructed
buildings appear in issues of the Negro Press. The Afro-
American, the Black Dispatch, the Chicago Defender,
the Cleveland Call and Post, the Houston Informer^ the
Kansas City Call, the Norfolk Journal and Guide, the
Pittsburgh Courier, and the St. Louis Argus are among
those which have modern rotary presses.

Printers and pressmen on Negro papers are now Ne-
groes, trained either by practical experience or in indus-
trial schools. What difficulties Negro publishers have to
face can easily be surmised from the editorial comments
of the California Eagle made only a little over ten years
ago in its 1937 Thanksgiving issue:

Most of our printers we had to make; not out of materials
with backgrounds of experience in the printing profession,

7 Syrjamaki, op. cit., p. 47.

-74-

HOW THE NEWSPAPER FUNCTIONS

but from the rank and file those who have been denied
opportunities. A number of the printers and operators em-
ployed by the Eagle today learned their profession in our
shop. Many of them were just ambitious litde tykes with
great zeal and little else when they came . . . asking for a
break. Time and again our machines have been damaged
by youngsters gaining their first mechanical experience.

WAGE AND LABOR POLICIES

While direct information on salaries and wage sched-
ules of the Negro Press are difficult to secure, its lack of
business stability, as evidenced by large casualties in the
thirties and early forties, and its inadequate income from
advertising and job-shop revenues tend to suggest that
minimum rather than maximum levels probably prevail.
Indicative of the growing professionalization of Negro
journalists is the fact that staff members of the New Yorl^
Amsterdam News joined the New York Newspaper
Guild 8 in 1936. When the publishers of that paper re-
fused to cede to the demands of the local guild, its mem-
bers went on strike and were fully supported by the white
guild. After eleven weeks, the owners went bankrupt, and
the new publishers signed an agreement with the local
guild.

8 This guild affiliation is only a sort of half unionization since
Negro typesetters and mechanics are still generally barred from
most ITU locals.

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

As a further evidence of the growing strength and
manhood of staff members of some Negro newspapers
strength and manhood made possible by unionization
one finds this curious line-up in the 1944 Presidential
election: While the publishers of the New Yorf^ Amster-
dam News went all-out Republican, urging and coaxing
their readers by writing anti-Roosevelt editorials of the
meanest type and urging them to vote for Dewey, the
staff members of this paper urged their co-workers thru
their own trade union paper to vote for Roosevelt.

Staff members of the People's Voice joined the Ameri-
can Newspaper Guild, an affiliate of the CIO in 1944. In
1945, staff members of the Chicago Defender and the Los
Angeles Sentinel also joined the American Newspaper
Guild a forward step indeed. A year later, the staff
members of the Pittsburgh Courier and the Washington
Afro-American joined the Guild. Probably two or three
moire have joined the Guild since then, but, by and large,
most staff workers in the Negro Press are not members
of any trade union, partly because the average Negro
newspaper is still run as a small individual business en-
terprise where personal relationship plays an important
part and partly because the Negro capitalist is no differ-
ent from any other capitalist whose main objective is to
amass a fortune, often calling this objective by the eu-
phemistic phrase of "enlightened self-interest." As a re-
sult, the Negro capitalist has almost always frowned upon

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HOW THE NEWSPAPER FUNCTIONS

unionism in his own plant while advocating it elsewhere.

In November, 1947, the International Typographical
Union in Chicago went on strike for $ioo-a-week pay,
and the daily papers of that "windy city" were being
printed by the unique process of photo-engraved zinc
cuts made from typewritten copies with handset head-
lines. While the Chicago Defender was preoccupied with
court litigation, it acceded to the Union's demand, but as
soon as the court fight, arising out of the will of the late
Robert S. Abbott, was over in late December, the Defen-
der declined to continue complying with the Union's de-
mand of $ioo-a-week pay for its workers.

John H. Sengstacke, general manager of the Chicago
Defender, answered the Union's demand with the follow-
ing statement that hits directly at the very weakness of
the Negro's attempt in building a segregated economy
within the fabric of national economy a national econo-
my that is built upon the tacit acceptance of the Negro's
economic, political, and social segregation as a matter of
course. The statement, clear and concise as it is, raises
some pertinent questions. Pointing out that the available
resources of the Chicago Defender could not support the
wage demands made by the Union, Sengstacke appealed
to the strikers to keep in mind the following facts:

Our resources are limited and we must depend upon the
Negro population only for income to survive.

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

As a Negro newspaper we are circumscribed by all the
business limitations imposed upon our race.

Because of this fact, we are restricted in securing adver-
tising.

Because of this fact, we are restricted in circulation growth.
f Because of this fact, we are restricted in purchasing news-
print, new presses, and the necessary tools to operate.

Because of this fact, we are restricted in securing bank
credits, loans, etc.

Because of this fact, our Negro stereotypers and pressmen
are not admitted into their respective unions and generally
are restricted to work in establishments operated by Negroes.

We cannot get away from these facts because they are
facts.

All Negro workers, too, must also remember that these
facts confront all Negroes regardless of their religion, union,
political and other affiliations.

. . . The other Negro newspapers in America, we believe,
should understand our problem and appreciate that recent
events more and more are conspiring to put Negro newspa-
pers out of business. If this comes to pass the Negro's strong-
est weapon in his struggle for first class citizenship will have
been destroyed.

While the author sees clearly the logic of Mr. Seng-
stacke's appeal, which undoubtedly deserves the serious
attention of all labor leaders, it seems rather strange and
highly far-fetched to compare this International Typo-
graphical Union with the Ku Klux Klan, as the ultra-
conservative Journal and Guide did in its two-full-length-

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HOW THE NEWSPAPER FUNCTIONS

column editorial tided, 'The Use of Negroes as Labor's
Pawns," dated December 20, 1947. Declaring rightfully
that the closed shop has so far proven to be the Negro's
enemy, the Journal made the following remarks, part of
which' are italicized by the author for emphasis:

It should not require an economist to see the logic and the
cold, practical sense in the argument which Mr. Sengstacke
makes. Unless that lesson is learned well, Negro newspaper
workers all over the country will find themselves being used
as pawns, destroying the only means of employment in the
printing trades and newspaper profession available to them,
in a foolish and suicidal gesture of cooperation with white
newspaper workers who have done and are continuing even
today to do everything possible to keep them from qualify-
ing and obtaining jobs in white newspaper plants.

A great many of our leaders have embraced without
question the entire dogma of the professional unionists. It is
not strange, therefore, that a majority of Negroes are sympa-
thetic with the efforts of the typographical union and other
labor organizations to defy and nullify the TAFT-HARTLEY law.

But we cannot hold these views and we cannot enter into
this fight without shaking the very pillars of constitutional
government by which we have been able to establish and to
hold the fundamental rights of American citizens.

// we encourage an international labor union to defy and
vitiate the TAFT-HARTLEY law because it does not agree with
it, although it is the law of the land, then we cannot consis-
tently ta\c a different position when another group, the Ku
KLUX KLAN, for instance, defies and nullifies a civil rights

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

law simply because it does not li\e it or does not believe it
should be the law.

This comparison of the International Typographical
Union with the Ku Klux Klan only indicates the anti-la-
bor attitude of this paper, which, of course, has many bed-
fellows. While fighting for the Negro's right to be recog-
nized as a full citizen of these United States, many news-
papers are, at heart, believers in the old laissez faire doc-
trine which made slavery and child labor possible in this
country even after other progressive nations had aban-
doned them!

The author has no intention of denying the historical
fact that closed unions have prevented Negroes from
gaining entrance in skilled and specialized labor jobs in
the past, as the Journal and Guide so aptly pointed out in
the same editorial. It is, nevertheless, equally true that la-
bor unions in the last ten years, particularly those organ-
ized under the CIO, have, perhaps, done more for the up-
lift of Negro labor and Negroes' civil rights tha^i the help-
less outcries of the Negro Press. One should not overlook
the fact that the general trend in the policies of the more
progressive as well as aggressive unions has been defi-
nitely toward recognizing the Negro's right to skilled
jobs and his right to join craft unions.

The author's serious objection, however, to comparing
labor unions with the Ku Klux Klan lies in the fact that

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HOW THE NEWSPAPER FUNCTIONS

a labor union works within the framework of all laws and
of the state and federal constitutions. Furthermore, labor
unions do not adopt the tactics of secrecy, hooded meet-
ings, intimidation, threat, and violence so consistently
used by the Klan. Another striking difference is that the
unions try to build class solidarity without distinction of
color, creed, or sex, which certainly is a far broader classi-
fication than the race purity and race solidarity concep-
tions of Hitler followed by the Klan conceptions which
have invariably ended in creating race hatred and race
riots. If one must attack the aggressive nature of labor
unions and their tactics of getting around the laws with-
out violating them, as they evidently are doing now, one
must admit that they learned these tactics from their em-
ployers who have been past-masters in evading laws they
disliked, using all the legal talent that their money could
buy to do so. As a result, the employers have succeeded
in creating a new class of super lawyers, known by the
special tide of "corporation lawyers," whose only job is
to show their patrons, for a high price, of course, how to
get around or beat laws without being caught by them.
Even a casual study of the development of our present
employers' liability laws will show numerous illustra-
tions of how employers have always used all means within
their power to evade their legal responsibilities even when
such evasion was socially and ethically unjustifiable tho
legally possible.

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

The latest evidence of the anti-labor attitude of the
Negro Press as a whole was manifested at the eighth an-
nual convention of the Negro Newspaper Publishers As-
sociation held in Detroit in June, 1947, when that august
body, by a strong vote, urged Senator Robert Taft to bend
every effort to have President Truman's veto of the Taft-
Hartley labor bill overridden. The defense of the publish-
ers for this action was that the bill contained an FEPC
clause providing non-discrimination in the selection of
membership.

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News Coverage and General Make-Up

A

JL\> STUDY OF SIXTY-SIX papCTS

showed competent news writing and editing. Since 1920,
there has been a steady drift to the Negro Press of young
college graduates who often have specialized training. As
a result, some newspapers have been able to approach the
professional standards of white papers and to achieve a
creditable impersonality in their writings. The Norfolk
Journal and Guide and the Kansas City Colly to name but
two, state that they employ as heads of their principal
departments only graduates of professional schools of
journalism.

Personal opinions and prejudices have disappeared
markedly from news articles of several important week-
lies, except as noted later in this section. Articles and col-
umns furnished by the news services are particularly out-
standing, while reporters on some of the leading news-
papers could competently fill jobs on white city dailies.
In fact, since the Second World War a growing number

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

of Negro reporters are serving as regular workers on
such well-reputed white papers as the New Yor^ Evening
Post, the New Yor% Times, the New Yor{ Herdd-Trib-
une, the PJM., the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Chicago
Daily News, the Chicago Herald-American, the Chicago
Sun, the Toledo Blade, the Afpon Beacon-Journal, and
the Detroit Free Press? In most of these cases, however,
these workers are assigned to write news touching Negro
life only.

Selection of news seems often very poor. Negro jour-
nalists appear to have learned the technique of writing
and editing news without making equal progress in find-
ing news, a process which requires a larger financial
outlay. These newspapers have tended to deal almost
completely with the. quirks ajid oddities of personalities.
The news covered is often of the obvious type, following
patterns of common gossip. To the well-informed reader,
many of these newspapers often become somewhat dull
and disappointing after the initial novelty wears off. In-
stitutional news is strikingly lacking and only a few
leading papers espouse local causes. The New Yor^ Am-
sterdam News and the People's Voice do cover local news
rather commendably, possibly because they are published
in a city having a large Negro population and also be-
cause they do not try to capture a nation-wide market by

Year Boo^ 1947, pp. 395-396.

NEWS COVERAGE AND MAKE-UP

issuing national editions as do the other larger papers
mentioned below.

From the point of view of coverage of national news
about the Negro, the Pittsburgh Courier, the Afro-Amer-
ican, the Chicago Defender, and the Journal and Guide
are the first four leading weeklies. How much emphasis
these papers give to national news and national circula-
tion can be gathered from the fact that the Pittsburgh
Courier publishes seventeen different editions: Local, Pa-
cific Coast, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Far South, South
National, New York, Washington (D.C.), Philadelphia,
Ohio, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis,
and Mid-West; the Chicago Defender, two: Local and
National, and two affiliates: the Michigan Chronicle and
the Louisville Defender \ the Journal and Guide, four:
Local (Norfolk), National, Richmond, and Newport
News. The national edition of each of the above-named
papers is meant to circulate in every state where that par-
ticular newspaper does not have a state edition nor an
affiliated paper in that state or section.

The Scott Newspaper Syndicate, which invaded the
Negro press field on a wide scale during the depression,
publishes the Atlanta Daily World. It also controls twelve
other papers which are printed in whole or in part in the
offices of the Atlanta World, thus effecting an economy
in production costs and permitting the use of up-to-date
shop equipment. At the same time, these very things com-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

pel excessive uniformity and minimize the importance of
local news in various papers of the syndicate. Possibly,
that may partly account for their meager combined circu-
lation of only 70,000. Other syndicates controlling a group
of papers are: the Birmingham Weekly Review Group
controlling seven papers; the Wolverine Group, four; the
Atlas-Power Group, five; and the Informer Group, four.

By and large, leading Negro newspapers serve a wider
area than their immediate localities; hence, their selection
of news is state, national, and international rather than
local. As a result, local news is often sadly neglected by
such papers. In a large number of newspapers, however,
national news appears scattered thruout the papers in-
stead of appearing on a few select pages. Furthermore,
this news is often culled from press services or clipped
from other papers and used in part for filler purposes.
Syndicated columns seem to be printed sometimes for
this reason. This indicates, in part, an inability or lack
of effort on the part of newspapers to cover the local field
adequately.

In the selection of the news, particular emphasis is
naturally placed on successes made by Negroes in com-
petition with whites. News of Negro churches and lodges,
certainly among the highest developed institutions in
"Negro culture," tends generally to tell only of elections,
social announcements, and other trivial details of no
serious news value. Frequently, even this trivial news

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NEWS COVERAGE AND MAKE-UP

appears from one to three weeks after its occurrence.
Quite often, such news is very poorly written.

Negro schools and colleges also supply their own news
written quite often in the style of society news with utter
disregard to its value as "news." Attempts at improvement
of the content and in the general tone of this news are
often frowned upon by the administrative officers of the
institutions who seem to be guided solely by the desire
to compete against other institutions for newspaper space.
To get more space in newspapers and to remain in their
good graces, some educational institutions buy so-called
legitimate advertising in which they announce the open-
ing dates of their institutions. A few newspapers make a
practice of collecting additional assessments in return for
their espousal of the institution's cause.

Except in the case of about a dozen papers, prominent
either because of their full treatment of local news or of
national news, editorial columns in most newspapers do
not rise much above the pattern of news writing discussed
above. Only in the syndicated columns does one find
articles attempting to deal with the more fundamental
problems confronting Negroes. This lack of institutional
news may be reflective of the fact that "Negro culture"
is only partly on its way to maturity. Such news cannot
be written if it does not exist, if no serious attempts are
made to gather it, or if there is no demand for it. The
impression gained from a careful study of outstanding

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

newspapers, however, is that the main fault lies with
Negro journalists. They have aped the white papers too
sedulously and have placed undue emphasis upon per-
sonalities and sensationalism in order to sell their issues. 2
In so doing, they have often completely ignored the op-
portunity of educating the public and thus elevating its
tastes. Possibly, they believe that their main job is to give
the public what it wants, or, rather, to give the public
what they think it wants.

The Negro papers are not unlike white papers in their
appearance. In general, they run in the direction of more
sensationalism, a feature stemming from the initial enter-
prise of the Chicago Defender and the Afro-American
which built themselves in the image of the Hearst papers.
The contents of the Negro papers include collectively the
usual treatment of news, robberies, murders and scandals,
society and personal items, sports, dramas and theater,
syndicated columns, letters to the lovelorn, Winchellian
columns, comic strips in white or shade, newspaper verse,
the inquiring reporter, beauty hints, recipes for the home-
maker, advice on how to bring up children; serial stories,
and astrological and "lucky number" columns. Some
newspapers of even the better caliber like the Courier have
been exploiting, until recently, this last phase of putting
the so-called lucky numbers in their papers so that num-
ber players may buy their papers.

2 Syrjamaki, o/>. '/., footnote no. 10, p. 49.

NEWS COVERAGE AND MAKE-UP

The departmentalization of such news as sports, soci-
ety, and the theater is generally well-done tho general
news is often badly scattered thruout the paper. There
is a general tendency toward prodigality in the allotment
of space to sports and somewhat less to drama and theater
news in the small city as well as in the metropolitan
weeklies. Little attention is given to book reviews except
in half a dozen leading papers. Racial issues are always
to the fore as one might naturally expect. Human interest
feature material touching upon the lighter side of life
is singularly absent; it is broached, however, occasionally
in the signed columns of a personal type. 3 Cartoons on
serious matters other than racial issues are rarely pre-
sented.

The use of pictorial journalism has been particularly
played up by the Negro Press, and even the smallest
country paper carries an ample share of cuts. Because of
the expense of engraving involved, cheap cuts are used
by small papers. The larger publications are able to in-
dulge in lavish displays of halftone etchings and often
devote between one-fifth to one-fourth of the entire space
to pictures alone, the Afro leading all others in this re-
spect. Larger papers, of course, use pictures as a part of
their sensationalistic appeal. Yet, there is an evident cal-
culated utilization of cuts to present news pictorially in
the Negro Press. Such policy also serves as a healthy
p. 50.

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

check against the repression neurosis from which the
Negro often suffers due to the complete apathy of the
whites who deny him the privilege of enjoying all the
social and cultural advantages which rightfully belong
to him as an American citizen !

The proportion of space devoted to news as compared
to that given to advertising is exceptionally high in most
papers. Perhaps, an average for the leading papers would
be between seventy-five and eighty per cent including
pictures. Space devoted to editorials and columnists is
from three to five per cent in many papers except in the
Pittsburgh Courier which definitely overplays this angle.
To conserve space, the Courier often uses small type in
major stories with solid or very thinly leaded long lines.
Stories on the front page of this paper, spreading some-
times from three to four columns in width, are printed
with poor leading and in small type, thus causing undue
strain on the readers' eyes an aspect that no better class
newspaper should neglect to take into consideration in
publishing a newspaper. Such neglect makes the general
appearance of the paper rather poor and its reading hard
and harmful to the eyes. Quality is sacrificed for quantity,
forgetting that this often defeats its main purpose, which
is to have the news read on a large scale. By and large,
sense of balance and rhythm and an attractive display of
type and pictures is generally lacking in dl but two or
three papers.

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NEWS COVERAGE AND MAKE-UP

As pointed out earlier, while considerable progress
has been shown in eliminating bias or personal opinions
in the writing of news stories, some newspapers still find
it difficult to be objective and honest in reporting news.
Such papers often omit news affecting certain persons
either because they have personal interest in them or be-
cause these persons are highly glamorized, popular, and
well-known individuals and the newspapers prefer not
to touch them adversely.

When the controversy between the church- and state-
supported units at Wilberforce University ended in the
dramatic dismissal of Dr. Charles H. Wesley as president
of the University in June, 1947, and in the establishment
of a separate state college at Wilberforce with Dr. Wesley
as its first president, and when charges and counter-
charges were hurled by each faction against the other,
many Negro newspapers carried news favoring one fac-
tion only and either refused to present the other faction's
point of view, or presented it meagerly, assigning to it
some insignificant place.

Strange as it may seem, on two occasions the Negro
Press ignored dynamic stories on the Wilberforce split,
possibly because these stories touched a highly glam-
orized faction leader. All factions did some doubt-
ful maneuvering. Quite often, their careless actions in-
volved infringements on one's constitutional rights and
civil liberties actions full of tragic human drama, of

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

actual assault and intimidation, of greed and selfishness,
of corruption and immorality, of congenital incompe-
tency, of "vested" or "divine" rights, of conflicting and
self-centered ideologies, of moronic inefficiency, of Machi-
avellian diplomacy, of Jekyll and Hyde, but the Negro
Press did not send in reporters to investigate even after
it was made aware of the existance of such a story! Thus
it lost a splendid opportunity to be of service to an age-
old institution with unusual potentialities but temporarily
stunned by internal warfare. At least, the welfare of the
students should have prompted some of the leading
Negro papers to look into this matter since their only
justification for existence is that they are primarily inter-
ested in the uplift of the Negro race.

The White Press, completely mystified and confused
by the civil war on the campus of a Negro institution,
did not know what to do, tho, be it said to its credit,
that it did send in good reporters who saw all factions
with the only motive of finding out the truth the truth
that was buried deeply in the past twelve years' history
of that memorable institution. Not understanding Negro
psychology, needless to say, they failed and frankly ad-
mitted their failure by being silent on the entire situation
and waiting for things to develop.

How far some Negro newspapers flatly refuse to be
objective and become autocratic in their general policies
will be evident from the following incident:

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NEWS COVERAGE AND MAKE-UP

In December, 1947, Wilberforce University submitted
an "ad" to the Afro, the Courier, and the Crisis magazine
for possible publication in their mid-January issues. Real-
izing that the "ad" might be refused on the ground of
its being controversial, in spite of its being factual, and to
avoid unnecessary delay as well as expense, the Univer-
sity, after trimming its "ad" to one third its size, submit-
ted a week later a second "ad" as a possible substitute
for the previous one.

THE FIRST "Ao":

AN APPEAL TO THE ALUMNI OF WILBERFORCE UNIVERSITY

We are anxious to build our alumni records which have
to be started from a scratch since Dr. Charles H. Wesley, pres-
ident of the newly-created state college at Wilberforce, and
Mr. Dorsey T. Murray, executive secretary of the Alumni
Association, have flatly refused to let us have access to the
names and addresses of our graduates and former students,
even though I have been elected by the Alumni Association
to be editor of the Alumni Journal. Please send to my office
your name, the year of graduation or departure from the Uni-
versity, your present complete address, along with those of
other alumni whose names and addresses you know. Please
urge others to do likewise.

We have just finished preparing a very revealing, dynamic,
and much-needed pamphlet, with no punches pulled. It is a
document which throws light on the Wilberforce Dilemma
created by the split between the church and the state a split
led by Dr. Claries H. Wesley. It is tided "The Wilberforce

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

Dilemma An Objective and Critical Evaluation of Dr. Wes-
ley's Administration." Please send for it.

Milton S. J. Wright, Director, Alumni Relations Office,
Wilberforce University, P.O. Box 24, Wilberforce, Ohio.

THE SECOND "Ao" (SUBSTITUTE FOR THE FIRST ONE) :
AN APPEAL TO WILBERFORCE UNIVERSITY ALUMNI

We are anxious to build our alumni records which have
to be started from scratch since we are unable to get access
to the records now in the files of the old Alumni Office.
Please send to the undersigned your name, year of graduation
or departure from the University, your present complete ad-
dress, along with those of other alumni whose names and
addresses you know, and urge others to do likewise. Thank
You. Milton S. J. Wright, Director, Alumni Relations, P.O.
Box 24, Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, Ohio.

The Crisis refused the first "ad," but promptly ac-
cepted the second "ad." This was published in its Febru-
ary issue.

The Afro also promptly wrote accepting the second
"ad," but stated, at the same time, that if the University
still preferred the first "ad," the Afro would have to take
some legal advice before giving the University its final
answer. From later correspondence with the publisher
about the Wilberforce split, the author seriously feels
that the "ad" would have been refused.

The Courier took ten days to refuse the first "ad."
Then after several days deliberation, it also refused the

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NEWS COVERAGE AND MAKE-UP

second "ad," naively assuring the University at the same
time that this was done "in the best interest of all con-
cerned-" No commentary seems necessary on this action
of the Courier except to point out the danger inherent
in a newspaper that gets monopolistic control in the circu-
lation of news a monopoly made possible by the seven-
teen different state and regional editions which the Cour-
ier publishes each week thruout the United States, a mon-
opoly that can be destroyed only by a readers' strike.

The Courier and the Afro-American gave only unfa-
vorable publicity to Wilberforce University, showing her
worst side while bringing out the best side of Dr. Wesley
and his newly-created state college. Then, on November
29, 1947, the Courier carried the following italicized note
on a news story -titled, "Dr. Wesley, Mrs. Ransom Dis-
cuss Wilberforce":

In \eeping with the COURIER'S policy of impartial report-
ing of the news and views t we present two pictures of the
Wilberforce situation: one from the President of the State-
supported school, the other from the wife of the Senior Bish-
op of the AME Church which supports the other school.

Both were date-lined Wilberforce, Ohio. On reading the
two columns one would get the impression that the Cour-
ier had interviewed these two persons. The fact of the
matter was that Mrs. Ransom was never interviewed nor
was any letter written to her on that subject. What she

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THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

was purported to have said was literally copied from a
letter that she had sent to the Dayton Hcrdd for publi-
cation. In this letter she was expressing her protest against
certain statements appearing in a news story published
in the Herald and written by one Jack Vincent on the
"Wilberforce Muddle."

The Courier made no reference to this newspaper, but
gave its readers the impression that its story was either
sent to it by the parties concerned or secured after an
interview with them. To the author this appears nothing
but dishonest journalism, and the Courier has been guilty
of it on many occasions. Perhaps, that is its method of
"making" news when none is available!

When the Director of Publicity of Wilberforce Uni-
versity protested to the Courier about this story on the
ground that it gave bad publicity to Wilberforce, the
Courier's answer was, "When the article was printed in
the Herald it immediately became a public matter. What
is your argument?*'

The author's response, that letters to editors were not
public in the sense that anyone could use their contents
without even mentioning the newspapers in which such
letters were originally printed, went unheeded.

The author has no desire to pass any judgment on the
"Wilberforce split" led by Dr. Wesley except to say that
all the blame does not lie on one side. The net result of
the tragic split has been "faculty thrown against facility,

.96-

NEWS COVERAGE AND MAKE-UP

students thrown against students, board and community
members divided into groups, gradual social disintegra-
tion, and false statements and confusion on all sides/*
The author's reason for making any reference to the in-
cident at all is that he knows this case from first hand
knowledge and hence feels secure in citing some of the
incidents as mere samples of ethics of some Negro news-
papers.

"Lifting" news and feature articles from newspapers
and magazines of the White Press and passing them on
as their own without giving any credit to proper sources
is not an uncommon practice among Negro newspapers.
Immediately after the NewsweeJ^ published a two-col-
umn illustrated story on the "Rose Meta House of Beauty"
a Negro enterprise in New York City which netted a
profit of $35,000 in 1946 this story was released by many
newspapers, almost word for word, without the name of
any agency or without any reference to its original source.
Some newspapers rewrote the story immediately after its
first appearance in the Neu/suseefy perhaps a "gentle-
manly" form of stealing news without being held liable
for such an action. The fact remains that the story, very
valuable to the Negro Press, was first unearthed by some
one connected with the Newsu/eel^ and was copyrighted
by it.

It might be noted here, in passing, that Negro news-
papers should be willing to pay for stories turned in in-

-97-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER,

stead of devising means to avoid payments. It is this sort
of unfair treatment that has prevented many writers
from turning in good stories with the result that many
newspapers print stories after they are two or three weeks
old. Certainly, the well-entrenched newspapers could
afford to pay for good and fresh news stories!

News-Gathering Agencies

T

JLHE COLLECTION of news for

the Negro Press is done by reporters and correspondents
covering local and regional centers, by voluntary reports
made by institutions, fraternal organizations, business es-
tablishments, and other similar organizations, and by
twenty -four news - gathering agencies of all types and
shades. Only two of these news gathering agencies are of
importance: the Associated Negro Press of Chicago and
the National Negro Press Association of Washington,
D.C.

The Associated Negro Press (ANP), 3507 South Park-
way, Chicago 15, Illinois, still the oldest as well as the
most comprehensive news services, is a cooperative news-
gathering agency founded in 1919 by Claude A. Barnett
for rendering service to Negro newspapers. Any newspa-
per of good standing which agrees to abide by the rules
of the agency and pays an application fee of twenty-five
dollars may be granted membership. Additional charge

-99-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

is made for the service itself. There were eighty-six news-
papers which held membership as of January, 1948.

News is issued twice weekly and under two classifi-
cations: class "A" and class "B." These releases leave
Chicago by mail on Friday and Monday of each week.
Class "A" service entitles the holder to both releases.
Class "R" service, which costs less, entitles the holder to
receive the Friday release only.

Each member newspaper agrees to cover news in its
vicinity and to report it to the ANP home office in Chi-
cago for distribution to all the members. This agreement,
however, is generally ignored by member - subscribers.
The greater part of news relayed to the newspapers in the
two weekly releases of the ANP is gathered by ANFs
own staff. The ANP claims that spreading out from its
Chicago office is a network of correspondents, one located
in every center of considerable Negro population where
news of vital importance to the Negro is apt to break.
All types of information continuously pours into the Chi-
cago office by mail from its selected correspondents. Many
volunteer writers also hold credentials which officially
establish them on a reportorial basis and designate them
as newsgatherers. Some of the news touching Negro life
is often culled from white newspapers and magazines.
Many important Negro organizations also make use of
the facilities of this agency to distribute news of their
activities.

- 100 -

NEWS GATHERING AGENCIES

Regarding the charge that ANP often acts as pub-
licity agent for some institutions and groups rather than
as an impartial news service, the director of ANP denies
that the agency "ever 'sells out 5 its news service to any
party, although he makes no secret of the fact that sub-
jects of pictures are generally asked to underwrite the
cost of cuts and mats." 1

Engaged in the task of presenting information affect-
ing the progress and achievements of the Negro, there is
no doubt that the ANP as a pioneer organization has
rendered and is still rendering signal service to the growth
and development of the Negro Press.

The National Negro Press Association (NNPA), 2007
Fifteenth Street, N.W., Washington 9, D. C, is the young-
est and yet, potentially, the most dynamic news-gathering
agency that is serving the Negro Press today. As such, the
NNPA news service has existed only since July 19, 1947.
The Negro Newspaper Publishers Association decided to
separate the news-gathering functions from its other acti-
vities at its June, 1947, convention. Thereupon, a group
comprising eleven publishers holding membership in the
Publishers Association took over the news setup without
interruption of service and pooled the needed funds to
carry it on with the same personnel. Following the suc-
cessful technique of the Associated Press, they reorgan-

^Myrdal, of. cit. y footnote 30, pp. 1424-1425.
- 101 -

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

ized the service so as to insure greater national coverage.
A written agreement for reciprocal exchange of news was
required of all newspapers using the NNPA service. Ex-
cept for this essentially technical change-over, however,
the service dates back to an earlier period, as will be ex-
plained later.

Realizing that coordination of ideas and policies and
closer association among publishers were conducive to
healthier competition and mutual benefits, a large num-
ber of newspaper representatives met in Chicago on Feb-
ruary 9, 1940, and formed the Negro Newspaper Publish-
ers Association. 2

When the gpth Fighter Squadron (formerly, the 99th
Pursuit Squadron), the first all-Negro air unit, was as-
signed to combat duty on June i, 1943, practically every
important newspaper wanted to have its own representa-
tives cover its activities. This, of course, the War Depart-
ment could not very well permit. So, Major General
A. D. Surles, then director of the Bureau of Public Rela-
tions of the War Department, suggested that newspapers
anxious to have direct coverage should form a "pool" for
getting news thru one or two correspondents with the

2 A similar organization, known as the National Negro Press
Association, was in existence during the First World War and
was very militant in its activities in the twenties. Its main purpose
was "the moral, material and general betterment of the Negro
press in the United States and the world."

- 102 -

NEWS GATHERING AGENCIES

understanding that such news coverage would be shared
alike by all members of the "pooL"

The first "pooling" arrangement lasted only two or
three weeks. However, the idea of cooperative coverage of
news and the promise of the War Department to give
priority in transportation arid wire facilities to correspon-
dents selected by a group of newspapers working coopera-
tively caught the imagination of fourteen publishers of
leading newspapers. They immediately formed a general
"War Correspondents' Pool."

Washington, during the war, was clearly the biggest
source of news of major interest to the Negro reading
public. Even now, it is the chief point of origin of the
biggest news, not only of general, national, and inter-
national import, but of and about the American Negro.
Great issues are always coming before the Supreme Court,
before Congress, before the various government bureaus
and departments, before chief officials, before the Presi-
dent himself issues affecting the most fundamental prob-
lems and aspirations of Negro Americans.

Recognizing the importance of news emanating from
Washington and the imperative need for a central bureau
to gather and distribute such news, the Negro News-
paper Publishers Association proceeded to set up an office
in that city in 1944, with Harry S. McAlpin, previously of
the Chicago Defender, as its first head. The Association
also succeeded in getting a Negro correspondent accred-

- 103-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

ited to the White House by a direct appeal to President
Roosevelt, at a conference in the White House on Febru-
ary 5, 1944. McAlpin was selected for this job. Finally,
and after long negotiations, the Association was able to
get Negro representatives admitted to the Congressional
Press Galleries on March 18, 1947. Louis R. Lautier and
P. L. Prattis, correspondent for Our World, a leading
Negro magazine, were the first Negro representatives ad-
mitted to the Congressional Press Galleries. Lautier is
also the present White House correspondent and chief
of the NNPA news service.

Thanks to the continued efforts of the Negro News-
paper Publishers Association to get Negro newspapers
recognized in every phase of activity of the Congress and
of the President of the United States, two Negro journal-
ists, P. Bernard Young, Jr., editor of the Journal and
Guide and chairman of the NNPA news service, and
Llewellyn A. Coles, editor of the Ohio State News and
vice-president of the Negro Newspaper Publishers Asso-
ciation, were accredited to the press group comprising a
total of twenty-eight persons accompanying President
Harry S. Truman on his official tour which left Washing-
ton, D.C., on February 20, 1948, for Key West, Florida,
and thence to Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, and Cuba. The
third Negro representative included in the group was
Lem Graves, Jr., Washington correspondent of the Pitts-
burgh Courier. This was the first time that Negroes have

- 104 -

NEWS GATHERING AGENCIES

been accepted to the press group accompanying the Presi-
dent of the United States.

All active members of the Association received this
news service free as the cost for it was included in the
annual assessments paid to the Association by them on
the basis of their net paid circulation.

Some of the members of the Publishers Association
did not like the idea of paying large assessments in order
to keep the news service going since they were also main-
taining their own correspondents or bureaus in the capital
city. These members brought pressure on the June, 1947,
convention of the Association and succeeded in inducing
it to give up its news gathering activities. The Pittsburgh
Courier took the lead in this fight as it felt that the service
was merely a duplication of its own efforts with its own
seventeen different state or regional editors and staff
members scattered thruout the nation. Furthermore, the
Courier was opposed to the idea of further expansion in
this service, as was first proposed, and of being charged
for the services on the basis of circulation, especially since
it was leading all other papers in circulation and would,
therefore, be required to pay the largest fee for this ser-
vice. This, the Courier selfishly argued, would be sub-
sidizing the service at its expense only to receive stronger
competition from small newspapers which would be re-
quired to pay only small fees for the same service. There-

- 105-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

upon, eleven newspapers, as explained earlier, took over
this service.

To maintain the goodwill created by the earlier service
of the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association, the or-
ganizers of the new service decided to call it the "National
Negro Press Association," and thus retain the initials
NNPA, which had then become popularly associated with
the news service.

Slowly but steadily, the NNPA is expanding its news
coverage nationwide. Even tho a great deal of the news
dispatched by it may carry a Washington date line, it is
not Washington news in the local or restricted sense. For
example, the recent reports by the President's committees
on civil rights and on education, the earlier reports on the
utilization of Negroes in the military forces, and the Su-
preme Court's decisions in the University of Oklahoma
lawsuit suggest the nature of the type of news made in
the capital. It is news of the very essence of importance
to people seeking to escape second class citizenship.

The NNPA sends out four regular mimeographed
releases each week. Wednesday's release is primarily fea-
ture and column material; Friday's and Saturday's are
primarily spot news; Monday's is supplementary spot
news. In addition, telegraphic service of news breaking
on the deadline is sent to those papers which have pre-
viously authorized its dispatch by press rate collect tele-
grams.

- 106 -

NEWS GATHERING AGENCIES

While the NNPA is providing only occasional foreign
service at present it is giving more and more national
coverage thru news coverage arrangements with its sub-
scribers. The service is available to any newspaper and the
fee is determined on the basis of net paid circulation.

In 1945, when this service was still a part of the Negro
Newspaper Publishers Association, forty-eight newspa-
pers, including one daily, with a combined circulation of
one and one-half million copies a week, were subscribers
to this service. As of January 1948, this reorganized ser-
vice had thirty-three newspapers on its membership list
with an estimated total circulation of 821,527. The Pins-
burgh Courier was not a subscriber to this service.

The NNPA news service reports that it has had in-
quiries from England, Virgin Islands, Ethiopia, South
Africa, Panama, Gold Coast, and Nigeria regarding the
availability of its news to publications in those countries.
In many other places, there are great numbers of persons
of African descent and of other colored races who are in-
terested in the activities of Negro Americans. The NNPA
and other American Negro news services have thus addi-
tional avenues of expansion in these directions.

It is evident that with the active support of newspaper
publishers, with the growing national coverage made pos-
sible thru an exchange-of-news agreement from its sub-
scribers, with its chief office located in the key city of
Washington, D.C., and with capable and seasoned men

-107-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

behind it, this service will undoubtedly offer keen compe-
tition to the ANP the oldest and, seemingly, still the
strongest and best known news-gathering service.

How long the one-man dominated ANP will be able
to survive against the growing competition of the NNPA
is a matter of conjecture. Nevertheless, the reader may
sense the trend from the outburst of the Ohio State News
in its 1948 New Year's edition. The News implied that
its decision to subscribe to the NNPA news service (it
was already a subscriber to the ANP service) was a clear
indication of its progress and that its readers could, from
then on, rely upon a better news coverage!

On the other hand, both services may survive and
grow, competing against and supplementing each other.
There is not now a complete duplication of subscribers
using both services. Many papers can afford to be sub-
scribers to both NNPA and ANP. Both could prosper
with support from a sufficient number of weeklies now
in business. Survival of both services would remove the
dangers inherent in a monopolistic news service. The
White Press is much more extensive and much more se-
cure financially than the Negro Press, it is true. It (the
White Press) supports three major news-gathering agen-
cies which offer twenty-four hour wire services and, lit-
erally, hundreds of special news, feature, and photo ser-
vices. It would seem, therefore, that there is room for two

-108-

NEWS GATHERING AGENCIES

strong semi-weekly or even daily news services devoted to
the interest of the rapidly growing Negro Press.

Continental Features, 507 Fifth Avenue, New York
City 17, specializing in several syndicated cartoons and
comic strips, serve some eighty-seven Negro papers a
week. Prior to the Second World War, Continental Fea-
tures also released articles on sports and the theater, but
it had to discontinue this part of its service during the war
and has not been able to resume it "because of shortage
of newsprint paper."

Calvin's News Service, 101 W. 46 Street, New York
City 19, was founded in 1935 and offers its patrons, free
of charge, theater, sports, general, spot, and labor news
as well as feature articles, photographs, and matrices. The
releases are dispatched weekly by mail, but there may also
be week-end flashes when the nature of the material
merits them.

The Continental Press Association, 2703 E. 22 Street,
Kansas City, Missouri, was founded in 1935 by C. E.
Chapman. Like Calvin's, it is a private organization which
dispenses general news in small quantities, photographs,
and matrices.

The Atlas News and Photo Service was founded in
Chicago in 1941 by Fred Douglas Downer. It is a coopera-
tive enterprise which supplies its more than fifty member-

- 109 -

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

papers with photo service and occasional news items. This
service is also offered free to the newspaper publishers;
the cost of photographs and matrices is borne by the pub-
licized subject. Any newspaper that agrees to use the re-
leases may have the services once each week. 8 Its present
location is at 444 E. 47 Street, Chicago 15, Illinois.

The Scott Newspaper Syndicate, 210 Auburn Avenue,
Atlanta, Georgia, and the Informer Syndicate, 2418 Le-
land Avenue, Houston 3, Texas, maintain independent
and exclusive services of their own.

In addition to these services, various recent directories
list the following seventeen services, most of which are
one-man organizations and do not play an important
part as news-gathering agencies of national scope:

Amalgamated News Agency, 407 Columbus Avenue,
Boston, Massachusetts.

Hampton Institute Press Service, Hampton Institute,
Virginia.

Howard News Syndicate, 515 Mulberry Street, Des
Moines, Iowa.

Independent Press Service, 48 W. 48 Street, New York
City.

NAACP Press Service, 20 W. 40 Street, New York
City 18.

8 Walter H. Rollins, op. cit., p. 34.
- 110 -

NEWS GATHERING AGENCIES

National Negro Features, 501 E. First Street, Los An-
geles, California.

Negro Digest News Service, 5619 S. State Street, Chi-
cago, Illinois.

Negro Labor News Service, 312 W. 125 Street, New
York City.

Negro Press Bureau, 4255 Central Avenue, Los An-
geles, California.

Pacific News Service, 617 N. Main Street, Los Angeles,
California.

Progress Neu/s Service, 80 Wickliff Street, Newark,
New Jersey.

Reciprocal News Service, 1600 N. Thirteenth Street,
Washington, D.C.

Tusfagee Institute Press Service, Tuskegee Institute,
Alabama.

United News Company, 6306 Rhodes Avenue, Chi-
cago, Illinois.

Victory News Service, 839 W. Walnut Street, Milwau-
kee 5, Wisconsin.

White Newspaper Syndicate, P. O. Box 58, Ham-
tramck, Michigan.

World Newspaper Syndicate (present address un-
known).

- in -

8

Advertising in the Negro Press

.wo MAIN REASONS have pre-
vented Negro newspapers from developing as lucrative
a source of income from advertising as have white papers
generally:

First, until recently, Negro papers have had to rely
mainly upon the patronage of business establishments in
Negro neighborhoods. These establishments have not been
sufficiently numerous nor affluent to be rich sources of
revenue for Negro newspapers; consequently, advertis-
ing revenue from them has been negligible. Since the
late twenties, however, newspapers in major cities have
been able to secure increasingly larger revenues from
local retail advertising. Most of them are derived from
retail establishments in segregated communities and from
centrally located retail outlets with large Negro patron-
age. According to one prominent advertising representa-
tive, more than ninety-five per cent of the establishments
using Negro newspapers for advertising purposes are
owned and managed by whites.

- 112 -

ADVERTISING

Second, prior to the thirties, the growth of the Negro
Press was recognized only by a handful of important
national advertisers which included, among others, manu-
facturers of Camel cigarettes, White Owl cigars, Lifebuoy
soap, Chevrolet automobiles, and Bond bread. This lack
of recognition of the Negro Press on a larger scale as an
advertising medium was partly offset by the efforts of
W. B. Ziff Company of Chicago, a white organization
which served as publishers' representatives and which
sought to secure the patronage of nationally advertised
merchandise for Negro newspapers. The Ziff Company's
efforts were partly successful in securing some advertis-
ing, but in the late thirties it began withdrawing itself
from this field and finally gave it up entirely, changing
its name to Ziff-Davis Publishing Company and devoting
itself first to the publication of specialized magazines
for fishing, hunting, and other sports, and finally to book
publishing.

Apart from the early efforts of Ziff Company in se-
curing the patronage of a small number of national ad-
vertisers for the Negro Press, a few individual newspapers
were able to attract such national advertisers as Gerber's
products, El Producto cigars, Pepsi-Cola, and Seagrams
and other nationally known liquor brands. Among those
which were sucessful in selling the Negro Press to nation-
al advertisers, the Afro-American was the foremost pio-

- 113-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

neer. The New Yor% Amsterdam News, the Chicago De-
fender, the Kansas City Call, and the NorfolJ^ Journal and
Guide were also among the early pioneers in this respect.

In 1940, Interstate United Newspaper, Inc., 545 Fifth
Avenue, New York City 17, was organized by the late
Robert Vann of the Pittsburgh Courier and Ira Lewis,
now president of the Courier. Together, they bought the
business formerly operated by Howard Crohn, who was
once the eastern manager for W. B. Ziff Company. To
capture some of the major advertising accounts, the Inter-
state set in motion the preparation of special studies on
Negro consumer markets in important cities having large
Negro populations studies similar to those completed by
the Afro - American in 1945. The organization cam-
paigned vigorously and successfully for. some important
advertising accounts. The leading sales arguments to pros-
pective customers were that the purchasing power of the
Negro had risen from four billion dollars in the twenties
to seven billion dollars in the thirties, and over ten billion
dollars in the forties, and that the Negro was a large
buyer of goods by brand names.

William Black, a capable, young, hard-working man,
joined this organization in 1942. With the help of his as-
sociates and by dint of hard work and presentation of
cold facts, he succeeded in securing the patronage of
jnany nationally known merchandise advertisers who had

- 114 -

ADVERTISING

hitherto limited their patronage to only a few papers.
Among the national advertisers whose patronage was
secured by the Interstate, one finds Calvert, Seagrams,
and other well known distillers' products; Tromer's,
Pabst, and Hoffman beers; Coca Cola, Pepsi-Cola, and
Royal Crown Colas; Chevrolet, Ford, Buick, and Chrys-
ler; Bond Bread, General Baking, Corn Products, Best
Foods, American Sugar Refineries, Safeway and A & P
Stores, and a few other nationally known food manufac-
turers and distributors.

Following the pattern of white advertising agencies,
first suggested to Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborn
Advertising Agency by William Vomack, formerly of the
Ziflf Company, and by Joseph B. La Cour, formerly of the
Afro-American, Interstate was able to employ the tech-
nique of using testimonial advertisements by Negro art-
ists. Nehi Corporation now advertises its Royal Crown
Colas in the Negro Press with the endorsements of such
celebrities as "Peg Leg" Bates, "Hot Lips" Page, Erskine
Hawkins, and others.

All in all, Interstate, the first and evidently the largest
representative of Negro publishers, is doing a commend-
able job. As of January, 1948, it claimed to be serving 135
periodicals. As of February, 1948, publications represented
by it had a slightly greater Audit Bureau of Circulations
total than any other group in the Negro field even thb
the number of ABC papers represented by it was small

-115-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

The Pittsburgh Courier with its seventeen separate edi-
tions is Interstate's most important customer. The New
Yor{ Amsterdam News, the Kansas City Call, and the
Scott Newspaper Syndicate Group are among its next
important customers.

Interstate is a profit making organization set up on
a purely business basis to increase the volume of quality
national advertising in the Negro Press. It receives its
compensation in the form of commissions from secured
business. Its management claims that it has sold more than
three million lines of paid advertising in one year and is
continuously increasing its volume. Recently, it spent forty
thousand dollars in cooperation with its member papers
to secure exact figures on the brand preferences of Ne-
groes from coast to coast and has published the result of
its study in an illustrated pamphlet titled, The National
Negro Market.

In March, 1944, the Associated Publishers, Inc., 526
Fifth Avenue, New York City 19, was formed under the
joint ownership of the Afro-American Group comprising
six newspapers, Carter Wesley of the Informer Group,
the Journal and Guide, the Michigan Chronicle, and the
Louisville Defender. All of them are among the most
prominent customers of the Association. None of the
newspapers served by the Associated Publishers patron-
ize the Interstate and vice versa.

-116-

ADVERTISING

In the short space of four years, the Associated Pub-
lishers has made rapid progress and is now serving twen-
ty-four newspapers. The combined weekly circulation
of these twenty-four papers is a little over half a million.
Two-thirds of the newspapers having membership in the
Audit Bureau of Circulations belong to this Association
which now has a branch office in Chicago and employs
a total of fifteen full time workers. From all available
records it appears that the Association has proven satis-
factory to the newspapers it represents and has earned for
itself an enviable reputation among important agencies
and advertisers. It has been fortunate in having experi-
enced, highly capable, and alert management and staff.
This may account, in part, for the rapid stride it has
made within the limited space of less than four years.

The names of advertising agencies operated by Ne-
groes, as distinguished from the publishers' representa-
tives just discussed, are: David J. Sullivan, 545 Fifth
Avenue, New York City 17; Braiidford Advertising, Inc.,
107 West 43rd Street, New York City; J. W. Christian &
Associates, 501 West i45th Street, New York City; W. B.
Graham & Associates, 55 West 42nd Street, New York
City; Sidne Flanders, Inc., 489 Fifth Avenue, New York
City; Davis, Fouche & Powell, Inc., 6308 Cottage Grove
Avenue, Chicago 37, Illinois; J. B. Williams & Associates,
622 E. 68th Street, Chicago 38, Illinois; A. L. Foster &
Associates, 417 E. 47th Street, Chicago 15, Illinois; and

- 117-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

the City Service Advertising Agency, 3447 S. Indiana
Avenue, Chicago 16, Illinois. Some newspapers, notably
among them the Chicago Defender, maintain their own
advertising departments which secure both local and na-
tional advertising for their respective papers.

Commenting upon the patronage of the Negro Press
by white national advertisers, Joseph B. La Cour, mana-
ger of the Associated Publishers, Inc., makes the follow-
ing observations in a letter to the author, dated January
5, 1948:

Misrepresentation of circulation and lack of believable
and authentic market data have also militated against the
acceptance of media serving our market and the colored
family as a consumer.

However, the picture is improving and with that im-
provement, important national advertisers are giving greater
recognition to the market and its media. Factors have been
the initiation of consumer research studies by the Afro-
American Newspapers, the subsequent national surveys of
Interstate United Newspapers, and the Pittsburgh study
sponsored by the Courier.

The growth in ABC circulation has also been contribu-
tory. For example, in 1930 only two Negro newspapers, the
Kansas City Call and the Amsterdam Nett/s, held member-
ship in the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Their combined
total was 52,000. As of November, 1947, twenty-four news-
papers hold ABC membership with a combined circulation
in excess of 1,100,000 and two magazines with a total com-
bined circulation of 361,000. Obviously, today we have more

-H8-

ADVERTISING

in the way of proved circulation with which to attract adver-
tisers and to command their attention and respect.

It is pertinent, however, to point out that there still re-
main many advertisers and agencies who do not give to the
Negro market the mature consideration it deserves.

A study of sixty-one newspapers in 1938 showed that
only nineteen, on the basis of liberal criteria, had devel-
oped their local advertising field with any success. Only
five carried legal advertising, and these were in limited
amounts. 1 Further study made in 1947 showed that na-
tionally circulating weeklies more than doubled their ad-
vertising linage during the past ten years and that they
were receiving more and more of national advertising
coverage in their national editions. The Pittsburgh Cour-
ier led all others in national advertising by a wide mar-
gin. Local advertising has also more than doubled, and
in some cases more than trebled, in many papers whose
circulation is limited to a radius of about fifty miles.

The advertising in the nationally circulating papers,
still small in volume, is virtually completely national in
appeal and consists mainly of advertisements for colas,
beers, and liquors; for hair and skin lotions; for leading
automobiles, food products, and patent medicines. Adver-
tisements of hair and skin lotions, easily the richest ad-
vertising contracts for the Negro Press, are generally lim-
ited to a few larger, nationally circulating papers and

1 Syrjamaki, op. "/., footnote no. 12, p. 51.
- lip-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

magazines, and do not reach small city papers. Patent
medicine advertising tends to appear in all types of papers.

Occasionally, the papers receive some lavish propa-
ganda advertisements of election campaigns, of big busi-
ness anxious to present its side of the case on some long-
standing strike, especially when the public seems to be
sympathetic towards the strikers, or of an industry ex-
plaining its stand in a labor strike.

The general appearance of advertising in the smaller
papers seems restrained and reasonable. These papers do
not unduly engage in hawking doubtful nostrums. This
is generally true of the Negro Press as a whole altho the
Afro-American, the Chicago Defender, and the Pitts-
burgh Courier have been, until recently, gross violators
in this respect. This may have been due to the fact that,
being the best sources of national advertising, they re-
ceived this patronage as a matter of course. Furthermore,
they were dependent upon this support, since they re-
ceived but scant attention even from big national adver-
tisers.

The New Yort( Amsterdam News, the Ohio State
News, the St. Louis Argus, the Baltimore Afro-American,
the Washington Afro-American, the Journal aftd Guide,
the Indianopolis Recorder, the Louisiana Weekly, the
Atlanta Daily World, and a few others are leaders in se-
curing extensive local advertising. A considerable amount
of the total advertising space in these papers is devoted

- 120 -

ADVERTISING

to "legitimate" and local advertising. The People's Voice,
a newcomer in the field of journalism, also stands up to
this measure.

The proportion of space given to advertising varies
from fifteen to twenty-five per cent for leading papers
and from seven to fifteen for small papers. Some small
papers with aggressive management like the Ohio State
News and the St. Louis Argus have succeeded in selling
from thirty to fifty per cent of their space for advertising.
These are, however, only second class newspapers with
great potentialities.

- 121 -

A Brief History of the
Negro Newspaper

ANTE-BELLUM NEWSPAPERS

T

i HE FIRST NEGRO newspaper

was published in New York on March 16, 1827, by John
B. Russwurm and Samuel E. Cornish under the name of
Freedom's Journal. This name was later changed to
Rights of AIL It was the forerunner to Garrison's Liber-
ator and was militant in its fight against slavery. In 1830,
Russwurm was captured by the Colonization Society and
sent to Africa, and this resulted in the suspension of the
paper.

In January 1837, Phillip A. Bell of New York started
the Weekly Advocate, selecting Samuel E. Cornish as
its editor. Two months later, the name of the paper was
changed to the Colored American, and, like its prede-
cessor, it took up the fight against slavery. This paper
was finally discontinued in 1842.

Some of the other publications of the period were: the
Elevator (1842), published in Albany by Stephen Myers;

- 122 -

A BRIEF HISTORY

the National Watchman (1842), published in Troy, New
York, by William G. Allen and Henry Highland Gar-
nett; the Clarion (1842), successor to the National Watch-
many in Troy, New York, by Henry Highland Garnett;
the People's Press (1843) in Troy by Thomas Hamilton,
and John Dias; the Mystery (1843) in Pittsburgh by
Major Martin R. Delaney; the Genius of Freedom
(1846?) in New York by David Ruggles; the Ram's Horn
(1847) * n New York by Willis A. Hodges and Thomas
Van Rensselaer; the North Star (1847) in Rochester by
Frederick Douglass; the Imperial Citizen (1848) in Syra-
cuse by Samuel R. Ward; the Colored Man's Journal
(1851) in New York by Louis H. Putman; the Alienated
American (1852) in Cleveland, Ohio, by Professor W. H.
H. Day; the Mirror of the Times (1855) in San Francisco
by Hon. Mifflin W. Gibbs as one of its editors, the paper
later merging into the Pacific Appeal in 1862; the Herald
of Freedom (1855) in Ohio by Peter H. Clark; and a
few others.

All of these early papers were militant in their general
policies and were motivated by a burning desire to secure
justice for Negroes, slave or free. The founders of the
papers were men of strong character who were primarily
interested in educating their readers and in spreading
information about the conditions under which the Amer-
ican Negroes were living. Since the founders did not

- 123 -

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

measure the success of their papers by the profits they
made from their sales but rather by the service they ren-
dered to the community, these newspapers, with the ex-
ception of the North Star (renamed Frederic]^ Douglass'
Paper in 1850 and finally discontinued in 1864), had short
lives running from two months to five years.

The National Reformer (1833) published by William
Whipper; the Mirror of Liberty (1837) by David Ruggles,
and the Anglo-African Magazine by Thomas Hamilton
were the only magazines published during this period.
All of these were short-lived. To this group may be added
the Christian Recorder, a religious weekly that was first
started as a quarterly in 1841, then changed to a weekly
in 1848 as the Christian Herald, and finally took its
present name as the Christian Recorder in 1856. This is
the only publication that has managed to survive thru the
Civil War and the two World Wars.

FROM THE CIVIL WAR TO THE CLOSE OF
THE FIRST WORLD WAR

"From the year 1866 on," observes I. Garland Penn in
his splendid book, The Afro-American Press, "Afro-
American newspapers were being founded in almost
every state, some of which died an early death, while"
others survived many years. Some dropped their original

- 124-

A BRIEF HISTORY

name, and, under another, exist today.*' 1 According to
Penn, there were thirty newspapers by 1880. Seventeen
of these were published in the South where ninety per
cent or close to six million Negroes out of the total Negro
population of six and one half million were residing. The
remaining thirteen papers were published in the North
where only half a million Negroes were residing. What
actually happened was that many of the Northern papers
also served the people of the South, a situation which is
true even to this day and which was discussed fully in
the previous chapter.

America's interest in the Allies and her final entry
into the European conflict gave further impetus to the
influence and growth of Negro newspapers. At least
twenty-four newspapers were started between 1900 and
the close of the First World War (1919), and half of
these were started during the duration of the war. At the
end of the First World War, there were 220 newspapers
and 230 religious, fraternal, college, and other miscel-
laneous periodicals, making a total of 450 periodicals. 2
The circulation of most of the now well-entrenched news-
papers like the Philadelphia Tribune (started in 1884),
the New Yor% Age (1885), the Afro-American (1892),
the Norfofy Journal and Guide (1900), the Chicago De-

1 L Garland Penn, The Afro-American Press, Springfield,
Massachusetts: Willey & Co., 1891, p. 107.
*Ncgro Year Boo%, 1918-1919, p. 461.

-125-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

fender (1905), the Amsterdam News (1909), and the
Pittsburgh Courier (1910) was increasing rapidly during
this period.

FROM THE CLOSE OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR TO DATE

From the close of the First World War to the year of
the stock market crash of 1929, at least twenty-one ad-
ditional Negro newspapers were started. The long, never-
ending depression of the thirties witnessed the following
changes in the Negro Press: the suspension of close to
eighty newspapers, eliminating the financially weak ones
and strengthening further those which were in capable
hands; the birth of thirty-two new newspapers; the doub-
ling, and, in some cases, trebling of circulation of many
papers; the rapid increase in advertising linage; the in-
stallation of new and expensive printing equipment; and
the dispatching of foreign correspondents to Europe by
two papers. This period between 1919 to 1929 also wit-
nessed the development of newspaper "combines" or af-
filiates and the introduction of different editions for dif-
ferent states or regions. The Pittsburgh Courier was lead-
ing others in circulation, closely followed by the Afro-
Americm, the Atlanta World and its affiliates, the Hous-
ton Informer and its affiliates; and the Chicago Defender
and its affiliates. The Atlanta World, founded by W. A.
Scott II on August 5, 1928, became a semi-weekly in the
Spring of 1930, then a tri-weekly on April 20, 1931, and

-126-

A BRIEF HISTORY

finally a daily on March 13, 1932, when its name was
changed to Atlanta Daily World. In the meantime, sev-
eral newspapers were started or joined as affiliates when
the Scott Newspaper Syndicate was established. In 1941,
this syndicate had twenty-nine affiliates. A special Sunday
edition was added to the regular daily edition, but was
later discontinued. By 1948, the number of affiliates was
reduced to thirteen.

In the fall of 1934, the Harlem Heights Daily Citizen
was started in New York as a daily, but within three
months it was suspended. It soon became evident that it
was well nigh impossible to start an independent Negro
daily and make a business success of it all by itself. The
Daily Bulletin, Ohio's colored daily newspaper, was foun-
ded in Dayton in 1942. It was more of an advertising, four
tabloid-page bulletin than a newspaper, even if one were
to judge it by the simple standards of the Atlanta Daily
World referred to above. It ceased publication in 1945,
but the Ohio Daily Express, started in 1944 and patterned
after the Bulletin is still in existence. It is also a four-page
tabloid bulletin of hardly any news value, serving only
as an advertising instrument for its owners. Neither the
Daily Bulletin nor the Ohio Daily Express deserves the
classification of a newspaper. The Atlanta Dotty World
has been able to survive for a long time as a daily mainly
because it has many affiliates which absorb its losses. Fur-
thermore, Atlanta city has the most progressive business

-127-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

community in the South as well as the largest number
of colleges; this results in getting a more sustained sup-
port to the city's Negro daily.

Commenting upon the growth of the Negro Press,
Joseph B. La Cour observes:

This vitality of the Negro press as demonstrated under
obviously difficult conditions is the essence of its strength as
a business institution. In this strength resides its economic and
cultural value to the Negro group. It's axiomatic that a finan-
cially strong press can best serve the true interests of its pub-
lic. This applies not only to its ability to secure and present
news and features but to its ability to utter forthright and
honest editorial opinions. 3

In 1945, there were no newspapers, 45 religious, fra-
ternal, college and other miscellaneous newspapers, and
100 magazines and bulletins, making a total of 255 Negro
periodicals. 4 As of January, 1948, there were a total of
169 #/,?papers, 56 college campus publications of all
types, and over 100 religious, fraternal, general, and other
papers, bulletins, and magazines, making a grand total
of 325 periodicals. 5

3 Joseph B. La Cour, "The Negro Press as a Business," Crisis,
April, 1941, p. 108.

4 Negro Newspapers and Periodicals in the United States,

*Supra, chapter 5, p. 68.

-128-

A BRIEF HISTORY

NEGRO MAGAZINES TODAY

This brief history of Negro newspapers will not be
complete without some mention of the existing status of
Negro magazines. They, too, are helping in the develop-
ment of Negro education and culture, and have given
jobs to several hundred persons. Some of them have a-
chieved professional standards that can be compared fa-
vorably with the best magazines. There were 100 Negro
magazines and periodical bulletins published in the Uni-
ted States in 1945. Some of these publications are of doubt-
ful cultural value, some are purely religious and fraternal
publications, while a few others are as good and scholarly
as any publications of their kind. Less than half a dozen
of these, however, have proven commercially successful.

The Phylon (1940), started by Dr. W. E. B* Du Bois
and edited by him until the summer of 1944 and since
then edited by Dr. Ira De A. Reid; the Journal of Negro
Education (1932), started and edited by Charles H.
Thompson under the auspices of Howard University;
the Journal of Negro History (1916), started and edited
by Dr. Carter G. Woodson; and Opportunity, the Journd
of Negro Life (1923), started and published under the
auspices of the National Urban League deserve first men-
tion because of their high scholastic standards. All of
these are issued four times a year; their main appeal is

-129-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

community in the South as well as the largest number
of colleges; this results in getting a more sustained sup-
port to the city's Negro daily.

Commenting upon the growth of the Negro Press,
Joseph B. La Cour observes:

This vitality of the Negro press as demonstrated under
obviously difficult conditions is the essence of its strength as
a business institution. In this strength resides its economic and
cultural value to the Negro group. It's axiomatic that a finan-
cially strong press can best serve the true interests of its pub-
lic. This applies not only to its ability to secure and present
news and features but to its ability to utter forthright and
honest editorial opinions. 3

In 1945, there were no newspapers, 45 religious, fra-
ternal, college and other miscellaneous newspapers, and
100 magazines and bulletins, making a total of 255 Negro
periodicals. 4 As of January, 1948, there were a total of
169 newspapers, 56 college campus publications of all
types, and over 100 religious, fraternal, general, and other
papers, bulletins, and magazines, making a grand total
of 325 periodicals. 5

3 Joseph B. La Cour, "The Negro Press as a Business," Crisis,
April, 1941, p. 108.

4 Negro Newspapers and Periodicals in the United States,
5> of- <**
^Supra, chapter 5, p. 68.

-128-

A BRIEF HISTORY

NEGRO MAGAZINES TODAY

This brief history of Negro newspapers will not be
complete without some mention of the existing status of
Negro magazines. They, too, are helping in the develop-
ment of Negro education and culture, and have given
jobs to several hundred persons. Some of them have a-
chieved professional standards that can be compared fa-
vorably with the best magazines. There were 100 Negro
magazines and periodical bulletins published in the Uni-
ted States in 1945. Some of these publications are of doubt-
ful cultural value, some are purely religious and fraternal
publications, while a few others are as good and scholarly
as any publications of their kind. Less than half a dozen
of these, however, have proven commercially successful.

The Phylon (1940), started by Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois
and edited by him until the summer of 1944 and since
then edited by Dr. Ira De A. Reid; the Journal of Negro
Education (1932), started and edited by Charles H.
Thompson under the auspices of Howard University;
the Journal erf Negro History (1916), started and edited
by Dr. Carter G. Woodson; and Opportunity, the Journal
of Negro Life (1923), started and published under the
auspices of the National Urban League deserve first men-
tion because of their high scholastic standards. All of
these are issued four times a year; their main appeal is

- 129-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

limited to scholars and educators which naturally results
in small circulation.

The Crisis (1910), founded by Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois
and edited by him for several years and now edited by
Roy K. Wilkins, and published under the auspices of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People^ is a monthly publication of popular interest with
an estimated circulation of close to 40,000 an issue in 1947.
Other non-religious and non-fraternal periodicals of
promising scholarship which deserve mention here, for
reasons given below, are: the Negro History Bulletin
(1934)5 edited by the Association for the Study of Negro
Life and History, for its contribution in the stimulation
of interest of students and teachers in the Negro's contri-
bution to civilization; the Negro College Quarterly
started as the Wilberforce University Quarterly in 1939,
changed to its present functional name in 1942, and edited
by Dr. Vishnu V. Oak since its founding, for its short
and varied articles of educational interest; 6 and the Quar-
terly Journal of Higher Education among Negroes (1933),
started and edited by Dean T. E. McKinney under the
auspices of Johnson C. Smith University, for its reports
of proceedings of important educational conferences and
other chronicles of higher education among Negroes.

The Negro Digest (1942), a publication modeled af-
ter the Reader's Digest and edited by John H. Johnson

temporarily suspended since June, 1947.

- 130-

A BRIEF HISTORY

and others of Chicago, has shown great promise, and its
well-edited articles, its rapidly growing circulation, and
its pleasing format have helped it to become a very popu-
lar Negro magazine. Encouraged by its success, the edi-
tors of the Negro Digest started in October, 1945, the pub-
lication of Ebony, modeled after Life, and are publishing
a highly creditable magazine of excellent quality which
has jumped in circulation so rapidly that, as of January,
1948, it stood at the top among Negro periodicals of all
types. In June, 1947, ^ ts Audit Bureau of Circulations fig-
ure was close to 325,000.

Headlines (1944), spicily-written, monthly publication
fashioned after Time magazine and edited by Louis Mar-
tin in Detroit, undoubtedly showed exceptional promise
even tho it got a late start in the period of war prosperity
and lived only two years.

Other new magazine ventures which indicate the
growing literary interest of the Negro and which deserve
mention because of their nation-wide appeal are: Our
World (New York), Color (West Virginia), The Negro
South (New Orleans), The Negro (St. Louis), and
Bronze Confessions (Miami).

Pep, a worthy but poorly executed attempt to model
after the Editor and Publisher magazine, showed con-
siderable improvement after it was taken over by the
School of Journalism at Lincoln University of Missouri
in 1945, but soon after that it met sudden death. The need

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

for such a journal is great, but it cannot prove successful
as a business venture at the present stage of the Negro's
business progress. For that reason, it has to be published
as a service agency to Negro newspapers and periodicals.
The Negro Newspaper Publishers Association or some
other similar agency should undertake the responsibility
of its resumption and thereby render a badly-needed ser-
vice to the betterment of the Negro Press as a whole.

-132-

10

Suggestions for Improvement

a

"NE is FORCED to admit that,
despite the many faults of commission and omission,
some of which are quite common also to the White Press,
the Negro Press is rendering an invaluable service in
crystalizing Negro thought and action. In serving as a
necessary outlet to the Negro's otherwise thwarted ambi-
tions and repressed anger against the injustices of his
white compatriots, it is also preventing the birth of more
"Bigger Thomases." Hounded at every turn, unable to
enjoy even the ordinary decencies of what we call the
"American way of living," debarred from recreational
activities and eating facilities open to white Americans,
the Negro finds that his press is the only outlet for him
and the only place where he sees himself depicted very
much as he is and for what he is worth without the
normal prejudices which meet him at every turn in his
dealings with the dominant race.

Measured by the amount of investment returns, no
other Negro business enterprise has paid the investor so

- 133-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

handsomely as the newspaper. This is especially true in
the case of big profit-making newspapers like the Courier,
the AfrOy and others whose owners and top executives
"have incomes ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 and up-
wards a year." 1 In addition to these attractive profits, the
newspaper entrepreneurs may well be proud of the fact
that they have been, slowly but surely, arousing the social
conscience of their own racial group as well as those mem-
bers of the white group who read Negro papers to the
injustices meted to the Negro. Here is one case where
"enlightened self-interest" has proven to be a blessing all
around.

This enlightened self-interest and the desire to stream-
line business techniques so as to conform to the latest
conceptions of public service ought to induce Negro news-
paper publishers to introduce the following reforms im-
mediatelyreforms which will pay them in the long run
thru increased sales and greater popularity:

(1) All news should be properly classified and then
should be printed on a definite page or pages, thus mak-
ing it easy for the reader to find quickly the type of news
in which he is especially interested.

(2) If large white dailies (and dailies are certainly
hard pressed for time) can manage to find time to prepare
a daily index of major items of news covered by their

1 Conrad, op. dt., p. 78.

1 lUNb fi U K IMPROVEMENT

papers, there is absolutely no excuse whatever for Negro
weeklies and semi-weeklies not doing likewise.

(3) Local issues should be more frequently espoused
and more persistently followed and kept alive until these
issues are satisfactorily solved.

(4) Incomplete news stories should be followed in
subsequent issues with later developments and closing
stories. Otherwise, readers are prone to believe that the
newspaper concerned is either incompetent or that it has
been "paid off."

(5) Sensationalism should be toned down consider-
ably, especially by certain newspapers who seem to ex-
ploit shamelessly people's miseries and misfortunes. Free-
dom of the press should not be turned into license of the
press.

(6) All correspondence should be promptly handled.
The author's own experience, corroborated by many of
his friends, has been very sad, indeed, in this respect In
these days of enlightened public opinion, when the need
for good public relations is so important, newspapers
should show more respect to the public instead of assum-
ing a contemptuously silent or "the-public-be-damned'*
attitude.

(7) Sell-outs during the Presidential election years
should be regarded as the worst sort of Quislingism. After
all, a Negro newspaper is a crusading organ even tho it

-135-

THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER

cannot ignore the business angle altogether. While strug-
gling small town weeklies and bi-weeklies may have some
excuse for their sell-outs, there is absolutely no excuse for
successful large city newspapers doing likewise. Unfortu-
nately, the large papers are often the worst offenders and
do more harm to Negro morale. "Of what avail is it to
White fighters for Negro advancement and honest Negro
leadership," asks Conrad in despair, "if their work is to
be canceled out in critical election moments?" Continu-
ing, he gives this solemn warning, "This situation has
implications of dynamite for the elections of 1948. In the
current disillusion with Truman, 2 prevalent in Negro
ranks, those papers which, in 1944, sold themselves to the
Republicans (while praying for a Roosevelt victory) now
have a better excuse, a rationalization, for the possible
'deals' with them in I948." 3

(8) News should be written without bias or without
personal opinion injected into it. While considerable pro-
gress has been made in this respect, a large number of
Negro newspapers still find it difficult to be objective and

2 Author's note: While this statement was true in 1946, the
courageous stand taken by Truman since 1947 on many contro-
versial issues is gradually swinging the vote of the Negro intel-
ligentsia back to him and to those of his colleagues who have
shown equally strong courage of their convictions and have come
out openly for a real democracy at home.

8 Conrad, op. cit., p. 79.

-136-

honest in reporting news, and often omit news affecting
someone in whom they have personal interest News
should be treated as news, even if it happens to be adverse
to highly glamorized individuals. No one is so sacred
that he need be given the privilege of trampling over
anyone's constitutional rights.

(9) Old news should not be published just because it
was once sensational. When the Kiwanis Club in Ahoskie,
N. C, refused to give Harvey Jones the Cadillac he had
won on a lottery ticket because of his being a Negro, it
was a big news story to the Negro Press. Within forty-
eight hours after the news became public, the Kiwanis
Club reversed its decision. Yet many Negro newspapers
played the first part of the story several days later, ig-
noring the sequel entirely or playing it down. Such ethics
in journalism will, in the long run, hurt everyone.

(10) When articles are "lifted" from white journals
proper references should be made to their sources. This
practice should be followed, especially in cases of copy-
righted articles.

(n) Contributors should be encouraged by cash and
prompt payments whenever good stories are sent in, es-
pecially by the better class newspapers who certainly can
afford to pay.

137-

Appendix I Bibliography

A large portion of this list is prepared with the help of
the Lincoln University School of Journalism, Jefferson City,
Missouri. In general, all books and theses will prove scholarly
and valuable reading. Those marked with an asterisk (*)
are, in the opinion of the author, of great value. They include
some unscholarly and biased opinions, but the author regards
them important because of their popularity and their tremen-
dous influence on the reading public. Students of the Negro
Press should be thoroly familiar with their contents and
their popular influence. References to articles appearing in
newspapers are of litde value because of the practical impos-
sibility of getting to them. A few such articles of exceptional
quality are, however, included in this list since the Lincoln
University School of Journalism had done the hard job of
getting them together.

"Absurd Headline," Letter to Time, April 13, 1942.

Albey, Mary Louise. A Study of What Fis\ Students Read. Un-
published master's thesis, Fisk University, 1939.

Allen, Samuel W. "A Youth Looks at His Press," Opportunity,
May, 1935.

"American Family, An: The Murphys of Baltimore," Headlines

and Pictures, May, 1946.

*"Aspects of the Negro Press," Journal of Negro Education, Sum-
mer, 1945.

Ayers Newspaper Directory (Section on Negro publications).
Philadelphia: A. W. Ayer and Son, 1948 and previous issues.

- I3 8-

BIBLIOGRAPHY

*Barnett, Claude A. "Role of the Press, Radio, and Motion Picture
and Negro Morale," Journal of Negro Education, July, 1943.
Berlack-Boozer, Thelma. "Amsterdam News: Harlem's Largest
Weekly," Crisis, April, 1938.

Berley, Charles Clifford. The Analysis and Classification of Negro
Items in Four Pittsburgh Newspapers, 1917-1937. Unpub-
lished master's thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1945.

*Bloodworth, Jessie and Hart, Hornell. The Negro Press. Unpub-
lished master's thesis, Bryn Mawr College.

*Bradley, S. Grace. A Study of the Associated Negro Press. Un-
published master's thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1945.
Briscoe, Sherman. "If Frederick Douglas lived Today: Meeting

Present-Day Problems," Pulse> February, 1946.
Brooks, Maxwell R. A Sociological Interpretation of the Negro
Newspaper. Unpublished master's thesis, Ohio State Univer-
sity, 1937.

*Brown, Warren H. The Negro Press in the United States and
Social Change: 1860-1880. Unpublished doctor's thesis, New
York School of Social Research, 1941.

* . "Negro Looks at the Press," Saturday Review of Litera-
ture, December 19, 1942.

Bryant, Ira B. A Comparative Study of News Items about Ne-
groes in White Urban and Rural Newspapers of Texas. Un-
published master's thesis, University of Kansas, 1934.

Calvin, Floyd. "The Digest" (Column), Washington Tribune,
February i, 1938, and April 16, 1939.

. "The Negro Press in the United States," Interracial Re-
view, August, 1939,

"Chicago Defender American Newspaper Guild Contract for
Editorial Workers," Editor and Publisher, August 5, 1944.

- 139-

APPENDIX

Chambliss, Rollin. What Negro Newspapers Are Saying about
Some Social Problems, 1933. Unpublished master's thesis,
University of Georgia, 1934.

^Chicago Commission on Race Relations. The Negro in Chicago
(Chapter 9). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1922.

Christian, Howard Nathaniel. Samuel Cornish, 1795-1858: Pio-
neer Negro Journalist. Unpublished master's thesis, Howard
University, 1936.

Clayton, Charles M. The Editorial Policy of the Atlanta Consti-
tution in Relation to the Negro Question, 10,14-18. Master's
thesis, Atlanta University, 1936.

Coggins, F. "Flash!! The Negro Goes to Press," Negro, Septem-
ber, 1946.

Conrad, Earl. "Exploring the News Field,'* Opportunity, April-
June, 1946.

* . Jim Crow America (Chapter 7). New York: Duell,

Sloan and Pearce, 1947.

*Dabney, Virginius. "Press and Morale: Negro Press," Saturday
Review of Literature, July 4, 1942.

* . "Newspapers and the Negro," Quill, November-Decem-
ber, 1943.

Davis, Marguerite Rose. A Survey and Analysis, of Opportunities
for Negro Women in Journalism. Unpublished master's thesis,
Kansas State College, 1942.

*Davis, Ralph Nelson. The Negro Newspaper in Chicago. Unpub-
lished master's thesis, University of Chicago, 1939.

*Detweiler, Frederick G. The Negro Press in the United States.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1922.

* . "The Negro Press Today," American Journal of Sociol-
ogy* November, 1938.

- 140 -

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Digest of Proceedings of the Negro Press Conference A. Spon-
sored by the Council for Democracy, New York, May 7-8,
1943.

''Drake, St. Clair and Cay ton, Horace. BlacJ^ Metropolis (Chap-
ter 15). New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1945.

Du Bois, W. E. B. "The Dilemma of the Negro," American
Mercury, Third Quarter, 1924.

Durham, Alice Marie. What Is Negro News? A study of three
Negro newspapers. Unpublished master's thesis, Atlanta Uni-
versity, 1938.

Durham Fact-Finding Conference Report, 1929. Contributions
of the Press in the Adjustments of Race Relations. Durham,
North Carolina, 1929.

Editorial. "Westbrook Pegler," Chicago Defender, May 23, 1942.

Editorial. "The Future of the Negro," Advertising Age, July 22,
1942.

Editorials. "Muzzling the Negro Press" and "For Better Writ-
ing," New Yor^ Age, May 9, 1942.

Elliot, Melissa Mae. News in the Negro Press. Unpublished mas-
ter's thesis, University of Chicago, 1931.

Evans, William L. Newspapers and Public Opinion Regarding
Negroes. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Buffalo,
1930.

*Field, Marshall. The Negro Press and the Issues of Democracy.
Address delivered before the first annual dinner of the Capi-
tal Press Club, Washington, D.C, June 21, 1944, and pub-
lished by the American Council on Race Relations, Chicago,
1944.

- 141-

APPENDIX

'Fleming, George James. A Survey of Negro Newspapers in the

United States. Master's thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1931.

* . "108 Years of the Negro Press," Opportunity, March,

1935-

* . "Emancipation of the Negro Press," Crisis, July, 1938.

''"Fortune Press Analysis: Negro Press," Fortune, May, 1945.

*Garlington, S. W. "The Negro Press," New Masses, March 9,

1943.

Gibson, W. D. A Comparative Study of the Immigrant and
Negro Press in Their Relations to Social Attitudes. Unpub-
lished master's thesis, Ohio State University, 1927.
*Gist, Noel P. Negroes in the Daily Press. Master's thesis, Uni-
versity of Kansas, 1929.

. "Negro in the Daily Press," Social Forces, March, 1930.

Gordon, Eugene. "Outstanding Negro Newspapers," Opportu-
nity, December, 1924, and February, 1925.

. "A Survey of the Negro Press," Opportunity, January,

1927.

* . "The Negro Press," American Mercury, June, 1926.

-. "The Negro Press," Annals of the American Academy

of Political and Social Science, November, 1928.

Gore, George W. Negro Journalism: Essay on the history and
present conditions of the Negro press. Thesis, Greencastle,
Indiana: Journalism Press, 1922.

Green, Loraine R. The Rise of Race-Consciousness in the Ameri-
can Negro. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Chi-
cago, 1919.

Gregory, Winifred. American Newspapers, 1821-1936. New
York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1937.

- 142-

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gross, Bella. "Freedom's Journal/' Journal of Negro History,
July, 1932.

Halliburton, Cecil D, "Hollywood Presents Us The Movies
and Racial Attitudes," Opportunity, October, 1935.

Hauser, P. J. The Treatment by Columbus Newspapers on News
Regarding the Negro. Master's thesis, Ohio State University,
1925.

. "Attitudes of the Press," Opportunity, July, 1925.

Herskaw, L. M. "Negro Press in America," Charities, October

7, 1905.
*High, Stanley. "How the Negro Fights for Freedom," Readers

Digest, July, 1942.

*Hollins, W. H. The American Negro Press: Content analysis of
five newspapers. Thesis, University of Minnesota, 1945.

Hulbert, James A. A Survey of the Services of the Atlanta Uni-
versity Library. Unpublished master's thesis, Columbia Uni-
versity, 1938.

Hughes, Langston. "Harlem Literati in the Twenties," Saturday
Review of Literature, June 22, 1939.

"International Year Book Number" (Section on newspapers of
the United States), Editor and Publisher, 1948 and previous
anrmal numbers.

Irving, Rhoda G. Advertising in Negro Newspapers. Unpub-
lished master's thesis, Ohio State University, 1935.

*Johnson, E. E. 'The Washington News Beat," Phylon, Second
Quarter, 1946.

APPENDIX

Johnson, G. B. "Newspaper Advertisements and Negro Culture,"
Social Forces, May, 1925.

Jones, Dewey R. Effect of the Negro Press on Race Relation-
ships in the South, Unpublished master's thesis, Columbia
University School of Journalism, 1932.

*Jones, L. M. "Editorial Policy of Negro Newspapers of 1917-18
as compared with That of 1941-42," Journal of Negro His-
tory, January, 1944.

Jones, Lucius. "Sports Slants" (Column), Atlanta Daily World,
July 17, 1940.

Kerlin, Robert T. The Voice of the Negro (Chapter i). New
York: E. P. Dutton Co., 1914.

*Kingsbury, Susan M.; Hart, Hornell; and Associates. News-
papers and the News: An objective measurement of ethical
and unethical behavior by representative newspapers. New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1937.

*La Cour, Joseph B. "The Negro Press as a Business," Crisis,
April, 1941.

*Lawson, Marjorie MacKenzie. "The Adult Education Aspect of
the Negro Press," Journal of Negro Education, Summer, 1945.

. "Press and Leadership Need Mutual Respect for Con-
structive Results" (Column), Pittsburgh Courier, December
8, 1945.

Lawson, Milton. The Influence of the Migration upon Negro
Newspapers. Unpublished master's thesis, Fisk University,
1941.

Lehman, H. C. and Atty, P. A, "Some Compensatory Mechan-
isms of the Negro," Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Janu-
ary, 1928.

- 144-

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MacLachlan, John M. Compensatory Characteristics of the Ne-
gro Press. Unpublished master's thesis, University of North
Carolina, 1932.

Mathews, Ruth and Fueglein, Jacob. The Negro Press in Amer-
ica. Unpublished bachelor's diesis, Marquette University, 1933.
*McAlpin, Harry. "The Negro Press in Politics," New Republic,
October 16, 1944.

Meacham, W. S. "Newspapers and Race Relations," Social

Forces , December, 1936.

*"Meetings of the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association,"
Pep, 1941-1945 issues.

Morris, John T. "The History and Development of Negro Jour-
nalism," The AME. Church Review, January, 1890.

Moton, Rashey Burriel, Jr. The Negro Press in Kansas. Unpub-
lished master's thesis, University of Kansas, 1938.
*Murdock, Horace D. Some Business Aspects of Leading Negro
Newspapers. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Kan-
sas, 1936.

Murphy, Carl; Jones, William N.; and Gibson, William I. "The

Afro: Seaboard's Largest Weekly," Crisis, February, 1938.
*Myrdal, Gunnar, An American Dilemma: The Negro problem
and modern democracy (Chapter 42). Harper & Brothers,i944.

National Negro Printer and Publisher, 1940-41.
*"Nearer and Nearer the Precipice," Atlantic, July, 1943.

"Negro Correspondent," Time, November 13, 1939.

Negro Handbool^ (by Florence Murray). (Sections dealing with
Negro newspapers and periodicals, 1942, 1944, 1946-47.)

"Negro Morale," New Republic, November 10, 1941.

Negro Newspapers and Periodicals in the United States (Pam-
phlet), U. S. Bureau of the Census, 1941-45.

- 145 '

APPENDIX

"Negro Paper Has Writer in Africa," Editor and Publisher,
December 26, 1943.

"Negro Press," American Mercury, June, 1926.

"Negro Press," Annals of the American Academy of Political
Science, November, 1926.

"Negro Press Holds Meeting in New York," Editor and Pub-
lisher, June 24, 1944.

"Negro Press," New Republic, April 26, 1943.
*"Ncgro Press Sees Steady Expansion of Book News," Publish-
ers Weekly, November 16, 1946.

"Negro Publishers," Time, June 15, 1942.
*Negro Year Boo^ (Section dealing with the Negro press). Tus-
kegee Institute: All issues.

News Story. "Field Asks Attacks on Enemies of Democracy,"
Editor and Publisher, June 13, 1942.

. "Negro Publishers Adopt Resolution," Pittsburgh Cour-
ier, June 13, 1942.

"PV Gets $25,000 But Ain't Seen It Yet," People's

Voice, June 20, 1942.

. "September 7 Suggested as National Newspaper Day,"

Afro-American, August 22, 1942.

"Walter White Fears Move by Washington to Hush

Negro Press," California Eagle, May 28, 1942.
. "Washington Alarm over Negro Press Unnecessary,"

New Yor\ Amsterdam-Star News, July 4, 1942.
"NNPA Meeting, 1942," Time, June 15, 1942.

*Oak, V. V. "What About the Negro Press?" Saturday Review

of Literature, March 6, 1943.

. "The Negro Press in Our Times," Indianapolis Recor-
der (Victory Progress edition), July 7, 1945.

- 146 -

BIBLIOGRAPHY

"One Man Newspaper," Ebony, March, 1946.
*Otley, Roi. New World A-Coming (Chapter 19). Boston:

Houghton Mifflin Co., 1943.
* . "The Negro Press Today," Common Ground, Spring,

1943.

*Pegler, Westbrook. "Fair Enough" (Column), New Yor%
World'Tclegram y April 28, May 13, June 16, 17, July 16,
1942.

*Penn, I. Garland. The Afro-American Press and Its Editors.

Springfield, Massachusetts: Willey & Co., 1891.
Perkins, H. C. "Defense of Slavery in the Northern Press on the
Eve of the Civil War," Journal of Southern History, Novem-
ber, 1943.

*Pickney, Elizabeth A. The Editorial Page of the Pittsburgh
Courier: 1923-35. Unpublished master's thesis, Fisk Univer-
sity, 1936.

Pierce, J. E. The NAACP, a Study in Social Pressure. Unpub-
lished master's thesis, Ohio State University, 1925.
Porter, William T. Radical Comments and Influence on the
Negro Problem in Alabama. Unpublished master's thesis,
George Peabody College for Teachers, 1936.

*Prattis, P. L. 'The Role of the Negro Press in Race Relations,"
Phylon, Third quarter, 1946.

*Prince, Virginia A. A Sociological Analysis of the Negro Press
in Los Angeles. Unpublished master's thesis, University of
Southern California, 1945.
Proceedings of the National Negro Press Association (1917-

1919). Nashville, Tennessee.

Proctor, Neal C. Lynch Law and the Press in Missouri. Unpub-
lished master's thesis, University of Missouri, 1934.

-147-

APPENDIX

^eddick, Lawrence D. The Negro in the New Orleans Press,
1850-1860: A study of attitudes and propaganda. Doctor's
thesis, University of Chicago, 1939.

Redding, J. S. "A Negro Speaks for His People," Atlantic,
March, 1943.

Reedy, Sidney J. "The Negro Magazine: A critical study of its
educational significance," Journal of Negro Education, Oc-
tober, 1934.

Roark, Eldon. "How Dixie Newspapers Handle the Negro,"
Negro Digest, June, 1946.

Roberts, N. S. The Negro Press as a Factor in Education. Mas-
ter's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 1925.

Robinson, Carrie C. A Study of the Literary Subject Matter of
the Crisis. Unpublished master's thesis, Fisk University, 1939.

Sancton, Thomas. "Something Happened to the Negro," New
Republic, February 8, 1943.

. "The Negro Press," New Republic, April 26, 1943.

Schuyler, George S. "News and Reviews" (Column), Pittsburgh
Courier, September 28, 1940.

Scruggs, Sherman D. Reading Interests of Negro Children. Mas-
ter's thesis, University of Kansas, 1925.

Sengstacke, John H. "The Way o' Things" (Column), Chicago
Defender, February 15, 1941.

Simpson, George E. The Negro in the Philadelphia Press. Phila-
delphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1936.

Standrig, T. D. Negro Nationalism. Unpublished doctor's thesis,
State University of Iowa, 1932.

Stewart, Milton D. "Importance in Content Analysis: A validity
problem," Journalism Quarterly, December, 1943.

- 148 -

BIBLIOGRAPHY

*Syrjamaki, John. "The Negro Press in 1939," Sociology and
Social Research^ September-October, 1939.

Tannenbaum, F. "American Dilemma," Political Science Quar-
terly, September, 1944.

"The Youngs of Norfolk," Headlines and Pictures, January,
1946.

This Is Our Way: Selected stones of six war correspondents who
were sent overseas by the Afro-American Newspapers, 1944.
Baltimore: Afro-American Co., 1945.

Thurston, Thelma. "The Call: Leader in the Southwest," Crisis,
June, 1938.

"Trouble in Dixie," New Republic, March 8, 1943.

"Trouble in Harlem," Time, June 15, 1940.

Turner, Lorenzo Don. Anti-Slavery Sentiment in American
Literature Prior to 1865. Thesis published by the Associa-
tion for the Study of Negro Life and History, Washington,
D.C., 1929.

"Twenty-fifth Anniversary," Opportunity, October, 1947.

U.S. Government Printing Office. Investigation Activities of the
Department of Justice. 66th . Congress, First Session, Senate
Document 153, Washington, D.C., 1919.

Wallin, George Georgean. A Study of the Content of Ten Negro
Newspapers. Unpublished master's thesis, University of
Iowa, 1935.

Wardlaw, Ralph. Negro Suffrage in Georgia, 1867-1930. Phelps-
Stokes Study, University of Georgia, 1932.

Warlick, Selma. Negro News in the Southern Press. Unpub-
lished master's thesis, Columbia University, 1931.

APPENDIX

Werner, Ludlow W. "The New York Age: Lusty veteran/'

Crisis, March, 1938.

Wilkerson, Doxy A. The Negro in the News of Northern and
Southern Daily Papers. Unpublished study for course in
"Communication and Public Opinion," University of Michi-
gan.

*Winslow, H. F. "Mr. Dabney and the Negro Press/' Saturday
Review of Literature, July 18, 1942.

Young, Consuelo C. A Reader Interest Study in the Chicago
Defender. Unpublished master's thesis, Northwestern Uni-
versity, 1943.

. "Reader Attitude Toward the Negro Press," Journalism

Quarterly, June, 1944.

*Young, P. B. Jr. "News Content of Negro Newspapers," Oppor-
tunity, December, 1929.

Young, P. B., Sr. The Negro Press. Reprinted from the South-
ern Workman for distribution by the executive committee
of the Virginia and North Carolina Commissions on Inter-
racial Cooperation. Richmond and Chapel Hill, 1929.

. "The Negro Press," Virginia Statesman, Virginia State

College, November 21, 1936.

"The Negro Press Past, Present, Future," Spelman

Messenger, May, 1938.

. "The Negro Press Today and Tomorrow," Opportu-
nity, July, 1939.

Young, T. C. "The Native Newspaper," Africa, November, 1938.

- 150-

Appendix II Directory of Negro
Newspapers

This directory is prepared with the help of the Editor and Pub-
lisher's International Year Bool^, 1948] Ayer's Directory of News-
papers and Periodicals, 1948; Negro Newspapers in the United
States, 1945, prepared by the U.S. Bureau of the Census; the
Negro Year BooJ(, 1947; the Negro Handbook 1946-1947; and
information gathered by the author thru direct correspondence
with newspaper men. Several changes have taken place in the
publication of many newspapers and every attempt was made to
make this list as up-to-date as possible.

Unless otherwise indicated immediately after the names of
newspapers, they are issued once a week. The abbreviations "sm"
and "bw" stand for semi-monthly and bi-weekly; "sw" and "d"
stand for semi-weekly and daily.

Independent, Independent Republican, Republican, Non-Par-
tisan, Negro Interest, Democrat, and Independent Democrat are
some of the platforms of Negro papers. For all practical purposes,
however, these platforms do not mean much in the general run
of the papers. All of them are interested in Negro life and hence
have 100 per cent Negro Interest.

Considerable difficulty was experienced in finding accurate
names of papers since most directories omit the city names pre-
ceding newspaper names even when they are part of the real
names.

A separate list of all college campus publications is given at
the end of this directory as Appendix III. Religious, fraternal, and

APPENDIX

other special interest publications are entirely omitted from this
list as they would serve no practical purpose here.

Circulation figures are taken from the directories referred to
above, but no attempt is made to distinguish the different sources
from which these 1947 figures were obtained except to print all
ABC figures in italics. Newspapers marked with an asterisk (*)
are the ones which were given special study for the purposes of
this book.

The number appearing immediately after the city is the zone
number of the newspaper's address.

Names are listed in the alphabetical order of states, of cities
within each state, and of newspapers within each city.

PUBLICATION AND LOCATION FOUNDED CIRCULATION

ALABAMA

* Weekly Review, Birmingham 3 1933 11,900

1622 Fourth Avenue N.

* World (sw), Birmingham i 1931 8,800

312 Seventeenth Street N.
Tri-Cities Informer 6- Call Post, Gadsden t 7,000

Gulf Informer, Mobile 1943 10,000

558 St. Francis Street

*Mobile Weekly Advocate, Mobile 10 1911 f

559 St. Michael Street

Press forum Weekly, Mobile 1894 f

Alabama Tribune, Montgomery 2 1935 1*500

P.O. Box 1264
Alabama Citizen, Tuscaloosa 1943 10,000

1307 Twenty-Seventh Avenue

-152-

DIRECTORY GENERAL

PUBLICATION AND LOCATION

ARIZONA

Arizona's Negro Journal, Tuscon
167 Meyer Street

ARKANSAS
Crusader Journal, Hot Springs

* Arkansas Survey-Journal, Little Rock

1516 W. Sixteenth Street
Arkansas World, Little Rock

905 Gaines Street
State Press, Little Rock

923 W. Ninth Street
Negro Spokesman, Pine Bluff

1809 Missouri Street

CALIFORNIA
^California Eagle, Los Angeles n

4073 S. Central Avenue
^Criterion, Los Angeles 14

124 W. Sixth Street
Los Angeles Sentinel, Los Angeles n

1050 E. Forty-Third Place
*Los Angeles Tribune, Los Angeles n

4225 S. Central Avenue
Neighborhood News, Los Angeles u

5000 S. Central Avenue
New Age-Dispatch, Los Angeles 21

1415 S. Central Avenue

California Voice, Oakland 12

2624 San Pablo Avenue

FOUNDED CIRCULATION

1934
1940
1941
I 93 8

I8 79
1940

1940
1930
1904
1919

3,200
12,500

12,600

12,700

10,000

10,000

t

12,300

5,100
5,000

t
10,500

-153-

APPENDIX

PUBLICATION AND LOCATION

Herald, Oakland

1570 Seventh Street
Tri-County Bulletin, San Bernardino

797 Ferris Street
Cornet, San Diego 2

2739 Imperial Avenue
San Francisco Reporter, San Francisco

1740 Post Street
San Francisco Sun, San Francisco

COLORADO

Colorado Statesman, Denver 5
615 Twenty-Seventh Street
*Star, Denver

910 Twentieth Street
Western Ideal, Pueblo
100 W. First Street

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
*A]ro~ -American (sw), Washington i
1800 Eleventh Street, N.W.

FLORIDA
^Florida Tattler, Jacksonville

511 Broad Street
Progressive News, Jacksonville

355 E. Union Street
Florida Spur, Ft. Lauderdale

P.O. Box 1378
*Florida Times, Miami

1 1 12 N.W. Third Avenue

FOUNDED CIRCULATION

1943

5,000

1945

5,300

1946

8,400

t

8,000

t

20,000

1890

4,000

1880

4,000

1911

1,200

1933

34,800

(total)

1934

10,500

1938

7,100

1947

t

1923

5,000

-154.

DIRECTORY GENERAL

PUBLICATION AND LOCATION

Miami Tropical Dispatch, Miami

1013 N.W. Second Avenue
Miami Whip, Miami

1109 N.W. Second Avenue
Colored Citizen, Pensacola

203 Baylen Street
Courier, Pensacola

513 N. Reus Street
Florida Record-Dispatch, Tallahassee

^Florida Sentinel, Tampa

P.O. Box 2619
*Tampa Bulletin, Tampa i

P.O.BOX 2232

GEORGIA
Albany Enterprise, Albany

517 Gordon Avenue
Albany Southwestern Georgian, Albany

* Atlanta Daily World (d), Atlanta 3

210 Auburn Avenue, N.E.
(National; w), Atlanta 3

Augusta Review, Augusta

World, Columbus

1024 First Avenue
Rome Enterprise (bw), Rome

503 Branhan Avenue

FOUNDED

CIRCULATIONS

1929

1,500

1943

2,500

1913

1, 600

1935

4,000

1947

2,000

t

9,600

1914

6,000

1937

2,200

1947

2,000

1932

18,500

1928

11,500

1947

t

1940

2,600

1904

2,100

- 155-

APPENDIX

PUBLICATION AND LOCATION

Savannah Herald, Savannah

*Savannah Tribune, Savannah 1875

1009 W. Broad Street

ILLINOIS
Illinois Times, Champaign 1939

208 Ells Avenue
^Chicago Defender (National), Chicago 16 1905

3435 Indiana Avenue
(Local)

^Chicago Sunday Bee, Chicago 9

3655 S. State Street
^Chicago World, Chicago 16

1 1 8 E. Thirty-Fifth Street
Crusader, East St. Louis

2215 Missouri Avenue
Robbins Herald, Robbins

P.O. Box 169
Illinois Chronicle, Springfield

1210 S. Sixteenth Street
Illinois Conservator (sm), Springfield

725 1 / 2 E. Washington Street

INDIANA
American Standard, Evansville

^Consolidated News (bw), Evansville

701/2 E. Walnut Street
*Gary American, Gary

2085 Broadway

-156-

FOUNDED CIRCULATION
t 2,500

4,100

1,000

1905

731,600

1905

62,300

1925
1918

Suspended
in 1947
35,000

1943

t

1917

3,600

1917

1,200

1902

4,000

1947

7,000

1943

3,500

1927

5,800

DIRECTORY GENERAL

PUBLICATION AND LOCATION

La\e County Observer, Gary
1629 Massachusetts Street
^Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis 7
518-520 Indiana Avenue

IOWA

*lowa 'Bystander, Des Moines
* 22 1 % Locust Street
*Iowa Observer, Des Moines
515 Mulberry Street

KANSAS
People's Elevator, Kansas City r6

503 N. Sixth Street
*Plaindealer, Kansas City 2

1612 N. Fifth Street
Wyandotte Echo, Kansas City 2

1908 N. Mill Street
Negro Star, Wichita 6
1241 Wabash Avenue

KENTUCKY
Kentucky Reporter, Louisville

noi W. Chestnut Street
^Louisville Defender, Louisville

418 S. Fifth Street
^Louisville Leader, Louisville 3
930-932 W.' Walnut Street
Louisville News, Louisville
442 S. Seventh Street

FOUNDED CIRCULATION
1946 3,700

1893

1894
1936

1900

1933
1917
1926

11,100

1,800
5,500

1892

t

1899

3,500

1928

2,000

1908

3,000

t

17,000

15,300
t

-157-

APPENDIX

PUBLICATION AND LOCATION FOUNDED CIRCULATION

LOUISIANA
*Informer and Sentinel, New Orleans 7 1939 3,000

2 10 1 Dryades Street
^Louisiana Weekly, New Orleans 13 1925 15,700

60 1 Dryades Street

*Shreveport Sun, Shreveport 1920 10,600

P.O. Box 191 t

MARYLAND
* A 'fro- American (National), Baltimore i

628 N. Eutaw Street
(Local; sw; total weekly circulation)

MASSACHUSETTS
^Boston Chronicle, Boston 18

794 Tremont Street
Boston Guardian, Boston 20

977 Tremont Street
Boston Times, Boston

4I2A Massachusetts Avenue
P.O. Box 187

MICHIGAN
^Detroit Tribune, Detroit i 1922 30,600

2146 St. Antoine Street
Detroit World Echo, Detroit 26 1938 t

1308 Broadway
^Michigan Chronicle, Detroit i 1936 26,500

268 Eliot Street

Voice, Inkster f 18,800

3054 Inkster Road

-158-

1892

80,000

60,600

1919

3,600

1901

10,000

1943

11,000

DIRECTORY GENERAL

PUBLICATION AND LOCATION FOUNDED CIRCULATIO*

Commentator, Pontiac 1947 3*500

Ypsilanti Washtenaw Sun, Ypsilanti t 3>5

MINNESOTA
^Minneapolis Spokesman, Minneapolis 15 1934 3,600

314 Third Avenue S.
^Recorder, St. Paul 1934 3>3OO

312 Newton Building

MISSISSIPPI
Delta Leader, Greenville 1938 8,000

1513 Alexander
Jackson Advocate, Jackson *939 33

125% N. Parish Street
Weekly Recorder, Jackson 7 t 3j5

523 Bloom Street
Mound Bayou Digest, Mound Bayou t 3ooo

MISSOURI
*Call, Kansas City 10 1919 41400

1715 E. Eighteenth Street
*St. Louis American, St. Louis 3 1927 14*500

ii N. Jefferson Avenue
*St. Louis Argus, St. Louis 3 1912 20,600

2312 Market Street

NEBRASKA
*0maha Guide, Omaha 10 1927 2,000

2420 Grant Street

Omaha Star, Omaha 10 1938 t

2216 N. Twenty-Fourth Street

- 159-

APPENDIX

PUBLICATION AND LOCATION FOUNDED CIRCULATION

NEW JERSEY
*New Jersey Afro- American, Newark 3 1940 20,800

173 W. Kinney Street
*New Jersey Herald-News, Newark 3 1927 19,900

130 W. Kinney Street

New Jersey Record, Newark 3 1934 t

129 W. Market Street

NEW YORK
Buffalo Criterion, Buffalo 4

367 William Street
^Buffalo Star, Buffalo 4

234 Broadway
* -Amsterdam News (sw), New York 27

2340 Eighth Avenue
*New Yor% Age, New York City 30

230 W. i35th Street
^People's Voice, New York City 27

210 W. i25th Street
Rochester Star, Rochester 8

159 Troup Street
Voice of New Yor^ State, Rochester 8

446 Clarissa Street

Progressive Herald, Syracuse 3 1933 5,100

815 E. Fayette Street

NORTH CAROLINA
Southern News, Asheville 1936 2,700

121 Southside Avenue
Eagle, Charlotte 1947 15,000

- 160 -

1925

2,500

1932

12,600

1909

105,300

1885

29,300

1942

16,800

1947

2,800

1934

12,600

DIRECTORY GENERAL

PUBLICATION AND LOCATION

Post, Charlotte 2

624 E. Second Street
^Carolina Times, Durham

814% Fayetteville Street
Carolinian, Fayetteville

Mountain News, Hendersonville
People's Chronicle, Kinston

Carolinian, Raleigh

118 E. Hargett Street
Journal, Wilmington

412 S. Seventh Street
People's Spokesman, Winston-Salem

721 E. Seventh Street

OHIO

^Independent, Cincinnati

653 W. Court Street
*Union, Cincinnati 2

238 E. Fourth Street
^Cleveland Call and Post, Cleveland 4

2319 E. Fifty-Fifth Street
* Cleveland Guide, Cleveland 6

2279 E. Ninetieth Street
^Cleveland Herald, Cleveland

1255 E. 1 05th Street
*0hio State News, Columbus 3

1 1 12 Mt.- Vernon Avenue

FOUNDED CIRCULATION

1920 3,000

1919

9,500

t

5,000

1939

t

1947

10,000

1920

15,000

1945

10,000

1945

5,000

1939
1907

1921

1931
1939
1935

6,000
3,000

23,400
4,500
7,200

15,800

- 161-

PUBLICATION AND LOCATION FOUNDED CIRCULATION

*Forum, Dayton 2 1913 3,500

414 W. Fifth Street
*Qhio Daily Express (d), Dayton 7 1943 2,500

1007 Germantown Street
"Butler County American, Hamilton 1939 t

422 S. Front Street

Toledo Script Newspaper, Toledo 2 1943 5,200

i oo 1 5/2 City Park Avenue
*Bucfeye Review, Youngstown 1938 1,800

423 Oakhill Avenue

OKLAHOMA
Oklahoma Independent, Muskogee I 93 2 4,000

325 N. Second Street
*Blac\ Dispatch, Oklahoma City i 1914 17,000

324 N.E. Second Street
Q\mulgee Observer, Okmulgee 1927 1,800

411 E. Fifth Street
Appeal, Tulsa 1938 4,900

419 N. Greenwood Street

*01(lahoma Eagle, Tulsa i 1920 5>*oo

123 N. Greenwood Street

OREGON

Inquirer, Portland 1945 f

PENNSYLVANIA
Crusader, Chester 1945 2,500

811 Central Avenue

* A fro- American, Philadelphia 47 . 1934 26,100

427 S. Broad Street

- 162-

DIRECTORY GENERAL

PUBLICATION AND LOCATION

^Independent, Philadelphia 46

1708 Lombard Street
^Tribune (sw), Philadelphia 46

524-526 S. Sixteenth Street
^Pittsburgh Courier, Pittsburgh 30

2628 Centre Avenue

RHODE ISLAND

Providence Chronicle, Providence
48 Cranston Street

SOUTH CAROLINA
Lighthouse and Informer, Columbia i

1022% Washington Street
*Palmetto Leader, Columbia
1310 Assembly Street

TENNESSEE
Chatanooga Citizen, Chatanooga

Chatanooga Observer, Chatanooga

124% E. Ninth Street
East Tennessee Neu/s, Knoxville 6

202 E. Vine Avenue
Flashlight Herald, Knoxville 10

1306 College Street
Monitor, Knoxville 15

347 Preston Street
Memphis World (sw), Memphis

388 Beale Avenue
*Globe and Independent, Nashville

403 Charlotte Avenue

FOUNDED CIRCULATION

1931
l88 4
1910

1938
1925

1947
1933
1906
1931
1944
1931
1906

23,800
iSjOO

(total)
277,900

i,6oo

5,500
6,700

6,000

5,000

30,000
(total)
18,000

APPENDIX

PUBLICATION AND LOCATION

TEXAS
Industrial Era (bw), Beaumont

1108 Gladys Street
*Express, Dallas

P.O. Box 185
Fort Worth Defender, Fort Worth

910 Grove Street
Fort Worth Mind, Fort Worth 3

9*5/4 Calhoun Street
Houston Defender, Houston 3

1423 W. Dallas Street
^Houston Informer, Houston i

2418 Leeland Avenue
Informer and Texas Freeman, Houston i

2418 Leeland Avenue
Negro Labor News, Houston 2

419% Milam Street
San Antonio Informer, San Antonio

322 S. Pine Street
San Antonio Register, San Antonio 6

207 N. Centre Street
Waco Messenger, Waco

109 Bridge Avenue

VIRGINIA
^Journal and Guide, Norfolk i

719-723 E. Olney Road
Richmond Afro- American, Richmond 6

504 N. Third Street
Tribune, Roanoke

- 164 -

FOUNDED CIRCULATION

i9 3

3,000

1892

12,100

1943

5,000

1931

4,000

1930

4,500

1893

6,400

1893

24,300

1931

10,000

1893

1,700

W

9,700

1932

4,000

1899

1939
t

62,900
13,300
15,000

DIRECTORY GENERAL

PUBLICATION AND LOCATION FOUNDED CIRCULATION

WASHINGTON

Northwest Enterprise, Seattle 1918 8,200

i So i Rainier Avenue

WISCONSIN
Globe, Milwaukee 5 1945 15,000

923 W. Walnut Street
Wisconsin Enterprise-Blade, Milwaukee 1916 50,000

715 W. Somers Street

- 105 -

Appendix III Directory of College
Campus Publications

(Arranged in the alphabetical order of colleges)

A & T College, Greensboro, North Carolina. Register.

Alabama State Teachers College, Montgomery, Alabama. Bulletin

(Organ of the American Teachers Association).
Adanta University, Adanta, Georgia. Phylon.
- . Atlanta University Bulletin.
Bluefield State Teachers College, Bluefield, West Virginia. Blue-

fieldian.
Cheyney Training School for Teachers, Cheyney, Pennsylvania.

Cheyney Record.

Delaware State College, Dover, Delaware, Lantern.
Downington Industrial School, Downington, Pennsylvania. Down-

in gt on Bulletin.

Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee. Fis\ Herald.
News.

. Monthly Summary of Events and Trends in Race Rela-

tions (Social Science Institute).

Florida A & M College, Tallahassee, Florida. Famcean.
- . Florida A & M Quarterly.

Gammon Theological Seminary, Adanta, Georgia. Foundation.
Georgia State College, Industrial College, Georgia. Georgia Her-

old.
Hampton Institute, Virginia. Hampton Script.

- 166-

DIRECTORY COLLEGE

. Virginia Teachers Bulletin.

Howard University, District of Columbia. Hilltop.

. Howard University Bulletin.

. Journal of Negro Education.

Johnson C. Smith University, Charlotte, North Carolina. Johnson
C. Smith University Bulletin.

. Quarterly Review of Higher Education among Negroes.

Kentucky State College, Frankfort, Kentucky. Kentucky Thoro-
bred.

Knoxville College, Knoxville, Tennessee. Aurora.

Langston University, Langston, Oklahoma. Southwestern Journal.

Le Moyne College, Memphis, Tennessee. Le Moynite.

Lincoln University, Jefferson City, Missouri. Lincoln Clarion.

. Lincoln Journalism Newsletter.

Lincoln University, Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. Uncolnian.

Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia. Maroon Tiger.

. Morehouse Alumnus.

Morgan State College, Baltimore, Maryland. Morgan State Col-
lege Bulletin.

. Spokesman.

Philander Smith College, Little Rock, Arkansas. Panther Journal.

Prairie View University, Prairie View, Texas. Panther.

. Standard.

St. Augustine's Seminary, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. St. Augus-
tine's Messenger.

Southern University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Southern Univer-
sity Digest.

Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia. Cam f us 'Mirror.

-167-

APPENDIX

-. Spelman Messenger.

Talladega College, Talladega, Alabama. Talladega Student.

Tennessee A & I State College, Nashville 8, Tennessee, Broadcaster*

. Bulletin.

Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee Institute, Alabama. Campus Digest.

. Negro Worker.

. Negro Farmer.

. Pulling Together.

. Service Magazine.

. Tuskegee Messenger.

Virginia State College, Petersburg, Virginia. Virginia Statesman.

Virginia Union University, Richmond, Virginia. Virginia Union
Bulletin.

West Virginia State College, Institute, West Virginia. Yellow
Jacket.

Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, Ohio. Negro College Quar-
terly*

. Mirror.

Wiley College, Marshall, Texas. Wiley Reporter.

Xavier University, New Orleans, Louisiana. Xavier Herald.

^Temporarily suspended.

-168-

Index to Subjects

Advertising patronage, 25, 90, 112-

121; so-called, 49
Afro- American, 31, 32, 38, 40, 43,

60-62, 70, 74, 76, 85, 88, 89, 93-

95, 113, 114, 116, 118, 120, 125
American Dilemma, 28, 31, 42, 101
Associated Negro Press, 41, 99-101,

107-108

Associated Publishers, 116-119
Atlanta University, 14
Atlanta Daily World, 85, 86, 120,

126, 127

Bibliography, 138-150
Black. Dispatch, 74
Boycott Movement, 8, 9

California Eagle, 62, 74, 75

Champion of Negroes, 35-37

Chicago Defender, 31, 32, 38, 40, 43,
62, 69, 70, 74, 76, 77, 85, 88,
103, 114, 118, 120, 125-26

Chicago Sunday Bee f 32, 73

Chicago World, 62

Church news, 86

CIO, 76, 80

Circulation, 31, 66-71

Classes o periodicals, 66-69

Cleveland Call and Post, 18, 32, 38,
62, 70, 74

Cleveland Gazette, 22

College Campus Publications, 166-168

College news, 87

Color, 66, 131

Corporation lawyers, 81

Crime news, 88

Crisis, 93, 130

Dailies, 85, 127, 128
Demands of Negroes, 35-37
Directory newspaper, 151-165
Display of type, 72-73, 90
Economic success, 133-134

Economic value of the press, 72
Editorial policies, 37-42, 91-97
Employed number, 72
"Enlightened self-interest," 47-51,

76, 134
Ethics of business men, 50-54

Foreign correspondents, 40-41
Freedom of the press, 63, 64
Freedom's Journal, 21, 122
Fortune press analysis, 37

General Education Board, 4, 5
Good business what is? 48

Harlem Heights Daily, 127
Headline, 63-64, 131

Income See profits
Indianapolis Recorder, 120
Informer, 41, 74, 86, 116, 126
International news, 39-40
Interstate United, 114-116
ITU, 75, 77-80

Journal and Guide, 31, 32, 38, 40,
43, 44, 62, 73, 74, 78-81, 83, 85,
114, 116, 120, 125

Kansas City Call, 32, 62, 74, 83,

114, 116, 118
Ku KIux Klan, 57, 78, 79, 80, 81

Labor Unions See CIO, ITU

Labor policies, 75-82

Lincoln School of Journalism, 131

Local news, 86

Los Angeles Sentinel, 62, 76

Louisville Defender, 62, 85, 116

Louisiana Weekly, 120

Magazines, 129-132
Michigan Chronicle, 62, 85, 116
Minister and the press, 26
Modernizing the press, 39

-169-

INDEX

Holder of public opinion, 26

National Negro Business League, 8,

16

National Urban League, 5, 14, 129
Negro capitalist, 11, 14, 76
Negro culture, 87-88
Negro economy, 8*12, 77-78
Negro market national, 116
Negro Newspaper Publishers Asso-
ciation See NNPA
Negro Press a fighting press, 20;
a wailing press, 21; contributions
of, 37; future of, 27-28; growth
of, 22-26, 31-32; handicaps of,
24-25; indispensable, 27; influence
of, 31-32; what white persons think
of, 4, 39, 40, 62, 63, 65, 74, 88,

119, 134, 136
Negro's culture, 87-88, 133
News coverage selection, 83-98
News services, 99-111; addresses of,

99, 101, 109-11

News what is? 36

Newsman's reward, 29

Newspaper combinations, 85-86

Newspaper Guild, 75-76

Newspapers ante-bellum, 1 22-124 ;
from 1860-1918, 124-126; from
1918 to date, 126-128; circulation,
66-77; list of, 151-165; number of,
66-71, 128; subscription, 71-72

New York Age, 22, 32, 44, 62, 125

New Yor^ Amsterdam News, 31,
32, 60, 62, 63, 70, 75, 76, 84, 114,
116, 118, 120, 126

NNPA, 18, 22, 41, 63, 82, 104, 105,
132; history of news service, 101-
109

Ohio State News, 32, 62, 103, 108,

120, 121

One hundred per cent American, 32

People's Voice, 32, 33, 38, 43, 44-46,

62, 71, 73, 76, 84, 121
Philadelphia Independent, 62

Philadelphia Tribune, 22, 62, 125
Philanthropy Negro's lack of, 14
Pictorial journalism, 89-90
Pittsburgh Courier, 31, 32, 41, 43,
52-59, 60, 62, 63, 70, 74, 76, 85,
88, 90, 93-96, 104, 105, 107, 114,
116, 118, 119, 120, 126
Policies of the press, 37-42
Press organizations NNPA
Profits to newspapers, 133-134
Public taste truth about, 46
Publishing establishments, 72

Quislingism, 52-62

Roosevelt administration, 48-64
Rosenwald Fund, 4

Scott Newspaper Syndicate, 85, 110,

116, 127

Segregated economy, 8-12, 77-78
Selection of news, 84-89
Sensationalism, 43-46
Social consciousness, 14, 17
Social vision, 14
Society news, 89
Sport news, 89
St. Louis American, 62, 120
St. Louis Argus, 32, 62, 74, 121
Subscription rates, 71
Suggestions for improvement, 133-

137

Taft-Hartley labor bill, 79, 82

Theater, 89

Typographical appearance, 72-73, 90

Wage policies, 75-82

War and the press, 33-35, 102, 103

War correspondents' pool, 103

Washington Bee, 22

Washington Eegle, 62

Washington its importance, 63, 103

White House, 63, 104-105

Widening horizon, 38-42

Wilberforcc University, 91-97

Yellow journalism, 43-46
Ziff, W. B., 113, 114, 115

-170-